Birthers must be in an uproar about this video courtesy of David Weigel at Slate.com that purports to show Barack Obama being born in a hospital IN KENYA. How do we know that’s in Kenya? Just look at this image from the film:
That’s a big oops, showing the flag of independent Kenya in 1961. The flag back then was:
There are a number of other objections to the video such as:
- The newborn looks far too big.
- The newborn has teeth (only 1 in 2000 newborns have teeth)
- The newborn’s eyes are open
- There is far to little blood
- There umbilical cord isn’t tied off
- The film is recorded at 24 frames per second, while 8 mm was shot at 16 FPS and Super 8 at 18 FPS (for amateur use). The claim is that the original was shot in Super 8, a system not introduced until 1965.
- The flag of Kenya is the wrong flag for 1961.
- The mother’s chart has a color Kenyan flag on it. Such forms wouldn’t have had color printing.
- The video appears to show standard video editing “old film” effects added.
- The calendar on the wall has August 4 circled, but later in the film the circle is missing.
- The mother bears only a resemblance to Stanley Ann Dunham, and is obviously not her.
- The photo of Dunham is way too large for a real hospital form, even if it made sense to have a photo on the form.
- Why is the photo of King George VI hospital on the wall the very one that appears on birther web sites? Given that the photo was from 1952, why wasn’t it framed?
Here’s an interview with the supposed source of the film.
So Dave Weigel over at slate found this posted by birthers
http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2012/10/25/now_the_birthers_have_a_hilarious_bogus_obama_birth_tape.html
The funniest video ever.
I think this is a good sign. It reeks (pun intended) of the birth-a-pa-loser crowd running out of steam. They kept slinging sh..uh, stuff, hoping something would stick. Now, as the election nears and they are left standing nakies, holding up the barrel of their last remaining shreds of hope, they are digging deep, prehensile toes crossed, reaching w-a-y down deep for anything that didn’t make the first cuts. Like a frat boy, searching for the cleanest dirty shirt on the floor, surely this is among the last of the dregs.
If this isn’t a parody, then it shows that birtherism’s death knell is sounding.
I bet it has layers.
I think this is the October Surprise Trumpf wanted to spring. He first announced it for a few days later, since they needed to check a few details like the flag, the super 8 claim (available only from 1965) and the sharple pen at the end (available only from 1964).
Realizing he got rickrolled, he invented that silly story about a five million bribe for Obama’s school records.
Yours is a good assumption.
From my dealings with wealthy people, I think they tend to throw money at problems when faced with a insurmountable challenge.
According to Wikipedia, the flag shown in the film was not adopted until December 1963.
It’s unusual but not impossible to have home movies made in 1961 to be in color.
It is very unusual for Barack Obama Sr to be credited with making the movie because the US State Dept records show that he didn’t leave the US, to go anywhere including his homeland, from 1958 to 1963. Howcome the doting dad didn’t arrange to be seen in the film?
The “newborn” is uncommonly large and uncommonly dry. The unanesthetized (!) mother also seems remarkably dry and energetic. My hospital experience is very slight but I am unclear on why or how the Kenya hospital would attach a large print of Ann Dunham’s 1964 passport photo on the doctor’s clipboard in 1961. And with her maiden name (not her married name, which should have counted for a great deal back in Kenya) Very Conspicuously shown – using a marker I don’t think was commonly available back in 1961. The unsweaty girl in the bed does not seem much like the photo.
The medical/technical features of this film are so implausible that I suspect the film’s producer was getting his obstetric advice from Republican congressional candidates.
Every woman gives birth to a 6 month old
Taken by Granny Sarah with the Obama family camera. I’ve heard many rumors about this film during my research in Kenya. I think Sarah sold it to Dinesh D’ Souza for the three goats he brought for the interview he says never took place. D’ Souza, was holding it for an “October” surprise, but with his dismissal from King’s College for messing around, he needed cash so he sold it to Trump, who was going to feature it at his big surprise announcement, but Orly Taitz threatened to include The Donald in her RICO suits if he upstaged her, so he went with the backup plan. The copy obtained by the birthers was in the video library of Osama bin Laden (who had gotten a copy from Onyango’s Muslim buddies in Kenya) that was scooped up by Seal Team 6 during the raid, and then leaked to Herman Cain, who showed it to John Oliver during one of the interviews for the Colbert Report, who was going to use it on October 18, but sold it instead to Saturday Night Live, but it was stolen by a disgruntled employee and sold to WND for 30 pieces of silver, and from there…. I don’t know.
I just looked at the video and the first thing I noticed was the usage of very common film noise and scratch plugins found in many video editors.
I can’t seem to add this to my previous message, but Ann Dunham’s 1964 photo (so large!) is on a page in which her MAIDEN name is writ Very Large and using a marker (and used only for her name) that I don’t think was commonly available in 1961. You’d think a Kenya hospital would have used her MARRIED NAME, not just for courtesy but because the Obama name would count for something inside Kenya.
Although it would appear that the baby was born in that very bed – the umbilical cord is supposedly shown – no blood, no mess, uncommonly tidy. The August 1961 calendar is also unexpected – it was previously shown on the wall in the background, then it is shown close up on the bed itself, but only for a second and out of focus, not long enough to read (I am not sure, after looking at this repeatedly, if it is a real August 1961 calendar – August 1961 started on a Tuesday).
Any story about WHICH hospital in Kenya and/or the name of the Kenya doctor in attendance??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_kenya
The above entry says the flag they’ve shown as 1961 started being used in 1963.
However a Google search also reveals a site saying the old flag was in use until 1957.
So there’s six years there as a gray area.
Regardless, if flags are adorned on common items in Kenya, it’s reasonable to assume the old flag might still be prevalent in later years.
Sorry for all the posts, but this video really amazes me.
While condemning certified documents as forgeries, birthers (or hoaxers) have manufactured their own forgery.
It takes considerable effort far beyond making a fake Kenyan birth certificate to do this.
They needed at least five people for this scene, one being a baby.
How much did Trump shell out for this?
That baby must have been on rice cereal and cow’s milk in utero.
Probably teething biscuits as well.
I would say closer to 12. Definitely wayyy too big for a newborn. Plus the eyes track and the head is held up straight. The filmmakers should contact the New England Journal of Medicine, as this is medical history right here.
That is awesome. All that’s missing is “FUTURE US PRESIDENT OBAMA” on the clipboard.
Pah, that can’t be President Obama. Where’s his Muslim ring?!
I don’t doubt you for a moment but I’d be interested in a link to the site saying the flag was in use until 1957. My searches are not coming up with it but that could be the google filters.
There is a possible significance to 1957 but I’d be happier seeing the site before I comment.
Of course, this is just my interest in trivia rather than anything any relevence to the this obviously forged/spoof video. (apart from anything else any man who tried to film the birth of his child in 1961 would be regarded as some sort of pervert and quickly ejected from the room)
http://www.frontiersmen.org.au/kenya.htm
It’s not exactly the same flag, but I could see
how someone searching for “flag of Kenya” could see the same date.
Thanks, I’m glad I’m didn’t comment more before seeing the link or I’d have gone off at a tangent. The flag at that site is actually the flag of the Governor of Kenya rather than the flag of Kenya Colony. It also was in use until 1963 but seems to have been used on that site through ignorance rather than knowledge. Several other parts of the site look dubious to me and I wouldn’t put any credence in it..
ASked my wife, a Doula with well over 100 births under her belt, to have a look at it. She laughed. Six month old babies don’t have umbilical cords, which is why they had to hold it on before pretending to cut it off
Welsh, my point was that someone searching Google for a Kenyan flag (ie: a movie-maker) might make the same mistake. 🙂
How they erred with both a flag on the bed and on the doctor is beyond me.
They did a very good impression of some faith healers I’ve seen with that “umbilical cord.” Their hands are holding it to the baby.
This just fascinates me because they likely had to script this, rehearse it, perform several takes and edit.
Many people working together in a very concerted effort.
Who?
You have me confused as to what you mean by “old flag.” The flag in the video is the new flag.
I may have worded it poorly, but in searching for older flags of Kenya, Google showed a flag much like the one shown was in use and it stated it was used until 1957.
If I was a filmmaker looking for a flag of Kenya, I may have stumbled upon that one, saw that it reigned until 1957 and decided the new flag was in service after 1957.
ie: 1961
H’mm
Desperate slime mould IQ level Birfoons at the same level as Gilbert or Ebil Obot overlords hoax to discredit Birfoons….So many levels of giggle so little time.
Of course the FTW will probably be ButterDelusional who will weave it seamlessly into her PROOF DoG DAMMIT that Hawai’i and Onaka have not certified the BC and records by their act of actually certifying them….or something…. 😎
Plus finding an actress that at least looks remotely like SAD and a baby that doesn’t look too un-Obama.
But they made sure the hospital record on the bed is shown twice (I have seen many films of child births, and never did the person filming – usually the father – bother to move away from mother and baby to show the record).
Or a shaky shot of some “men in black” (with sunglasses, suitcases and all) standing near the opposite wall and nodding their heads in satisfaction.
Laugh it up, Obots. People didn’t appreciate Ed Wood during his lifetime, either.
This bit of film is so damn easy to debunk (sort of like those old Norman Rockwell covers for the April Fools issues of Saturday Evening Post) that I have a question:
Can anyone show me that any birfers took this film seriously ??!
The picture on the back wall showing people gathered in front of King George VI Hospital, in Nairobi, is an especially nice touch. Don’t want to forgot the Nairobi birth meme that KBOA so much loved.. To bad the writing wasn’t in Dutch.
I don’t see any sign that any birther has pushed this video.
Looks to me like someone was trying to punk the birthers.
I don’t know who did this, but they went to a LOT of trouble to make the video, inept as it is. This is way beyond any “punk the birther” scheme to date.
It’s not beyond the pale that this was a fraud designed to entice big bucks from some birther fool (e.g. Donald Trump), not unlike the attempt to sell a certain Kenyan birth certificate on eBay some years back.
Or rather a shaky shot of three “men in black” (suits, sunglasses, suitcases and all) standing near the opposite wall, nodding to one another in satisfaction.
I have no doubt birthers will eat it up (they gloss over much worse inconsistencies and errors in their other beliefs), I’m just curious what it is meant for.
If it was to influence the elections, I suppose it would’ve been on many birther websites before you found it.
Maybe it’s new propaganda material for after the elections? After all, birthers need to continue to be milked and fed new “OMG this is it” material on a regular basis.
Am I in moderation? *confused*
Here’s an interview with the film’s source:
http://www.vice.com/read/is-this-obamas-kenyan-birth-video
Looks to me like this was a promotional video for a full 15-minute version targeted for sale to Donald Trump.
Nope. You got caught in the spam filter. I’ll take care of it.
Anyone remember the alien autoposy movie that came out maybe 20 years ago? Same production value.
I’ve seen Ed Wood movies that were better put together, and I have seen a lot of Ed Wood movies.
While films of births are common today, how common were they in the 1960s? I would guess that they were almost unknown. Sadly my retired midwife great-aunt passed away some years back, so I cannot ask her, but I do not think that it was standard practice to allow the father into the delivery room in 1961.
And that child is indeed at least six months old. I mean, he’s far too big. The idea that is a newborn is laughable.
I was born in 1957 and according to my late father, he was definitely NOT allowed in (nor, frankly, did he want to go in). Now, while that wasn’t in Africa, I know that in many African cultures, women traditionally gave birth in birthing huts which men were strictly prohibited from entering. Perhaps American Mzungu would care to comment. I believe the “let’s have Dad as a full participant and make a wonderful souvenir of the birth” is a post 1960s thing that did not exist in either Western or non-Western cultures before then.
This film is laughable on every level and makes Lucas Smith look very professional by comparison.
We used to dream of 8mm or even 16mm with this kind of clarity, and this kind of colorspace. This is not 1961 color. It’s not Kodachrome Type A, for sure. A truly impressive hoax would have use believing that it was Kodachrome, since that would be a breathtakingly expensive (if even possible) thing to counterfeit. I suspect this is digital video that has been put through a weathering process, and if anyone actually cared, I would predict that there are enough artifacts to be identified even after that process, that could prove it. But nobody is taking this film seriously, not even the birthers, right?
No, amazingly they aren’t.
I guess there is a brain cell between the lot of them after all.
It’s either a hoax perpetrated on the Birthers, or a very foolish forgery by a Birther. I can see that searching for ‘Kenyan flag’ on the internet would produce the current flag – and foreign history is not something that many Birthers are good at. The standard reference works make it quite plain that the current Kenyan flag was not in use in 1961, when Obama was born, but was only introduced in 1963, meaning that what we have above is a very clumsy fake.
The current Kenyan national flag was based on the flag of the Kenya African National Union, the party that led the struggle for independence. That flag was however rather different from the national flag, as it had a cockerel in a white circle in the centre rather than a shield with spears, and it did not have the white spaces between the horizontal bars, meaning that the flag on the bed is definitely the modern national flag of Kenya.
Thx. 🙂
My money’s on “hoax”. I mean, c’mon, a “closeup” of the record pasted to the bed, a shaky sweep to the doctor’s shoulder to make sure to catch the Kenyan pin he wears… the only thing that could’ve given it away any more would’ve been “Obama Sr.” (i.e. the cameraman) waving a hammer-and-sickle flag in front of the camera and some voice off-screen yelling “quick, the plane for Hawaii is leaving any minute”.
But I bet the farm that in 3 months, birthers will have adopted “I saw the video of his birth in Kenya” to their everyday vocabulary.
They’re no Einstein on American history.
HOLY COW! That baby is HUGE!!!!!!
I would think that even birthers aren’t dumb enough to swallow this one. Besides the genuinely HUGE baby (that was the first thing that leaped out at me….my youngest is 6 months old and isn’t even that big), it’s just coincidental that the write Ann’s name in HUGE black marker. Flash to a calendar….and then have the post-1963 Kenyan flag is plastered everywhere….on the Dr’s lapel, on the bed, and on the form with Stanley giant name plastered on it.
More on the flag:
http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/ke-hist.html
http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/ke.html#coa
http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/ke_index.html#hist
American Mzungu declines to comment about Luo birthing customs, about which he has no personal familiarity.
However, American Mzungu joins with the “nurse” in giving a standing ovation to Stanley Ann Dunham for giving birth to this elephant of a son with only the slightest hint of perspiration daubed from the forehead by the “nurse” in the opening frames. A most extraordinary woman, this Stanley Ann. Her instantaneous recovery from the labor can only be described as superhuman.
I was born in the early 70s, and my father still wasn’t permitted in the delivery room. And I don’t think my mother even held me for some several hours after my birth. Granted, this is a US birth, and I don’t have any clue about Kenyan practices, but the concept of a father being part of the birthing process is rather progressive, and the idea of filming the process, even more so. I find it very hard to believe that a culture still heavily influenced by tribal traditions, and probably a fair sense of machismo would, A) have the father any closer to the delivery room than the bar across the street, and B) not only have the father in the delivery, but filming the process.
And hilarity ensues:
Oh, is that what was happening? My interpretation was the nurse was saying, “See? That’s why you were so uncomfortable: you were sitting on a 1 year old child!”
That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.
Where’s yutube and John to tell us we are being unfair and should give this new evidence some reasonable consideration?
Probably preparing their crying rooms for November 7th.
HUGE baby. What is Barack here…about 38 pounds soaking wet in afterbirth? GOP will stop at nothing, but not to worry, stupid people believe anything most of the time.
Didn’t the fake Kenyan birth certificate state that the baby was 7 pounds and change? This infant is at least 3 times that. They just can’t keep this stuff straight, can they?
From what I understand, the law for film-making is that a baby must be at least 6 mos old and a parent must be present.
Just a guess, but it’s probably that “doctor’s” kid.
Don’t worry, Orly will add another “expert witness” to her cases who will testify to the fact he/she saw Obama being born on the internet.
First Malcom X, then FMD…now it’s some random Kenyan Doctor? Have you people no shame?
The shot of the “August 1961” calendar is a hoot. Looks like they pasted a slightly brighter piece of paper in the fold with the month and year printed in Arial font which was designed in 1982 along with a Sharpie which was first released in 1964.
How come I never get to use the time-machine?
Are any of these fools the least bit intelligent. Don’t they realize that by by not using the right flag they are proving themselves to be to be non credible. That is such a stupid mistake and it would not take much work to find the right flag.
It gets better. In the interview ‘Peter R’ says that the film was “a VHS transfer of the original Super-8 film.”. I find that hard to believe, given that the Super-8 format was only introduced by Eastman-Kodak in 1965!
‘Peter R’ is winking at us at 24 blinks per second. If this film had a soundtrack, it would be by Rick Astley.
LMAO! The baby was born with TEETH? If you look at the first shots of the baby’s face right after the supposed birth (before the fake umbilical cord is shown) they show the baby opening his mouth for a split second and white teeth appear. LMAO!
Did anyone notice that this (very large and very dry) baby is shown born with his umbilical cord (natch) which we supposedly see being snipped …. and yet nobody ties off either end of the cut cord. In fact they don’t allow themselves any time to do any of that. And there seems to be no blood involved.
And the baby is evidently born without actually being pulled out of the mother. They just lift up the blanket and there’s the baby. Nobody was watching the baby emerge or turning the baby or anything. And the baby is awake and smiling. No slapping needed. This only makes sense in the Republican Party School of Obstetrics.
What do you know about how babies are born in Kenya? Hmmm?
Not usually, but with Obama being an affirmative action child and all, he got things others didn’t. 😉
I have had 3 children and was present at my grandsons birth. That poor baby whoever he is does not look like any newborn. This is so pathetic it is almost funny. Was this someones idea of a birther joke?
The guy who made the video public is posting comments including his email address all over the internet begging people to contact him and give him a chance to explain the video’s authenticity. So have at it, Dr. Conspiracy. You can get in touch with him at petersrehnquist@gmail.com
Not sure if it’s the same guy, but, SCOTUS Justice William Rehnquist had a grandson named Peter, a basketball player of some sort:
http://thesportingsceneboston.blogspot.com/2010/01/bcs-rehnquist-dons-robes-of-scout-team.html
This video reminds me of the mondo films from the ’60s:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondo_film
Because you are sane.
You should be ashamed of yourself, questioning the intellect and sincerity of Donald Trump.
He is single-handedly trying to save western civilization, and even has his own reality show, so he can show the rest of the world how it’s done.
Jesus, Mary, Joseph and Donald Trump!
IIRC, Super 8 was 18 FPS.
You should not be casting aspersions on that baby. All babies are a gift from the lord.
I want to know why Grandma isn’t in the video….she said she was there…a man of God told me….and he wouldn’t lie.
I have been trolling the birfer websites and so far have not found anyone who is touting this video as evidence. On the other hand, some websites point to this video as an obvious fraud and wonder aloud who would be so gullible as to believe it.
The calendar in the film correctly starts the month on a Tuesday. What I find odd about the calendar is that earlier in the film we see a calendar on the hospital room wall with August 4 (the President’s birth date) circled. However later in the film we see a calendar on the bed with a marker pen on it that is NOT circled. The latter image suggests that the calendar was about to be marked, but the earlier image has it marked already.
Hypothetically the film could have been edited, or there could be two calendars, although the design on the two calendars is the same. The main question is why a delivery room calendar would have a date circled in the first place.
Trivia question: Can you find the THIRD flag of Kenya in the video?
I find that the best way to look at videos like this is first to download the video, and I use a Firefox plug-in called “Download helper” to accomplish that. Then I use QuickTime to view the film. You can single frame through the video with the left and right arrow keys.
Doing this one can count the actual number of frames per second in the video, that is the number of unique images that appear in a second. It is 24.
8 mm film was shot at 16 FPS and Super 8 at 18 FPS.
Why is the calendar in English and not in Swahili?
http://www.kiswahili.net/1-calendars/monthly-calendar.html
Also, the graphic on the calendar – honestly I haven’t looked at the video since considering this question, but does the design look appropriate for that year or more modern and is it possible to track down that graphic?
Also, I just found this interesting tidbit, although I don’t know how common it is:
“Swahili days themselves are numbered from Friday (based on the Mohammedan calendar) with Monday being jumatatu (juma=week and tatu=three).” – http://www.masai-mara.com/mmsw2.htm
It seems all of the graphic visuals in the video are meant for American consumption.
I think I see four.
More on Swahili calendars:
https://sites.google.com/site/afropedia/african-science/swahili-calendar
“False flag operation”
My grandma and your grandma
Sitting by the fire
My grandma says to your grandma
“I’m gonna set your flag on fire”
So, they thought nobody would find out that it wasn’t at 18 FPS? This whole thing is starting to look very amateur.
I see a poltergeist.
Yeah, but what about Hebrew calendars?
The Blaze interviewed Peter Rehnquist and posted it. Regarding the Super 8 film, he says”
“The thing is it could have been like 8 and not Super 8, I don’t know, the guy just got the films, the actual films. It says Super 8, might have been 8.”
Well, that’s another lie. Apparently it’s not 8 either as that would be 16 FPS (Doc says it’s 24 FPS).
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/we-talked-to-the-guy-who-uploaded-the-alleged-obama-kenyan-birth-video-heres-what-he-had-to-say-about-the-flag-the-film-that-huge-baby/
And, Rehnquist says he’s a Romanian? LOL Rehnquist is Swedish in origin.
One of the last comments on the link from The Blaze says that the image on the calendar looks like a “Flower Spirits” art piece by someone named Steven N. Meyers.
The image on the calendar is from his 2013 calendar collection (second from the left on the bottom row):
http://img2.imagesbn.com/images/165910000/165912911.JPG
Here’s a link to info about the entire calendar at Barnes and Noble:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/2013-flower-spirits-wall-calendar-steven-n-meyers/1108179191
Steven N. Meyers says he started doing this type of “x-ray” flower photography in 1971:
http://www.artbol.com/painting-artist/steven-n-meyers
Birther Morons Tout Hilariously Faked Video of Obama Birth as Real
http://crooksandliars.com/mugsy/omg-birther-morons-tout-hilariously-faked-vi
Donna, can you comment there? Tell them about the image being part of a 2013 calendar collection (link to image from Barnes and Noble above your last post).
And one date circled. Did they put up a fresh calendar every day, with just the current day circled?
Also, why the close-up of the Doctor’s lapel pin?
Well, there’s the doctor’s very-non-1960s-looking cloisonné pin… . Clearly he was a doctor/politician.
For Bgansal and others:
The President’s date of birth, 4 August 1961, would also be the Hebrew date of 22 Av, and the Moslem date of 22 Safer (both are lunar calendars, with months beginning at the very first sliver of moon after the new moon, so this is not surprising).
There is no internal evidence of the location of the hospital room within Kenya but the interviewer’s claim of Mombasa seems Very Unlikely. Mombasa would be at the very opposite end of Kenya from the Obama family hometown – several hours drive on a very primitive roads (or even no roads), bypassing numerous closer hospitals and midwife clinics on the way. It is not clear if Mombasa was actually a part of Kenya on the day of Obama’s birth; it apparently was still part of Zanzibar (Tanzania) on that date.
I erred in a previous message. The (suspiciously large) photo of Ann Dunham is not from 1964. Wikipedia dates it as 1960, possibly a school photo, but that’s a year before she married and gave birth – therefore this would NOT have been the photo on her passport or visa (the US State Dept says she didn’t have a passport until the Prez was age 4). Even if it had been used for those documents, the massive enlargement on the hospital clipboard seems impossible to be such high quality if enlarged from passport size.
Just for historical context:
The British colonials were still firmly in control in 1961. The European hospital in Nairobi might have a picture of the Queen on the wall, but unlikely to have a Union Jack. If the hospital is supposedly the Aga Khan hospital, you might have a picture of the Aga Khan on the wall. I don’t remember flags prominently on display in hospital rooms in the mid 1960s. If there was a calendar in a room, it would be a “European” not “Swahili” calendar.
I doubt there were more than a handful of African doctors delivering babies in Kenya in 1961. Most would have been “European” or “Asian”. Mulago Hospital (connected with Makerere University) in Kampala, Uganda, was the only medical training facility for Kenyans in East Africa and it would not have had a substantial number of Kenyans in the stream in the 1950s so they would be ready to practise in 1961. Maybe a few Kenyan Africans might have gotten training in Britain, or elsewhere, and found their way back to practise in Kenya in 1961, but I doubt that in 1961 an African doctor would be displaying a pin of a Kenyan flag or even a Kanu pin.
The name of the image in the calendar on the video is Canterbury Bells from Steven N. Meyers Flower Spirits 2013 Calendar.
I just tried to create an account at Crooks and Liars so I could post this information and inform them that Steven N. Meyers claims to have started doing this type of artwork in 1971 and the image is from a 2013 calendar, but as soon as I was approved I used my one time link to go to my account and register my password and was promptly notified that I’m banned (WHY????) so now I can’t. Can someone please do this for me?
The image (the one from Amazon is much clearer) shows Canterbury Bells (the image in the video on the calendar) on the bottom row, second from the left:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81-DZtdl%2BQL.jpg
I knew that photograph on the wall behind the hospital bed looked familiar.
http://socialismisnottheanswer.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/obama-is-born-again-two-kenyan-hospitals-provide-bcs/#more-6900
Again for historical context:
The birthers have used the McCrae taped phone interview with Granny Sarah to place her at the birth in Mombasa. You can only come up with that location with crazy scenarios—like Stanley Ann couldn’t get on a plane in Nairobi so she was going to catch a ship in Mombasa to take her back to Hawaii.
Mombasa (and a narrow coastal strip) may have had a legal status as a lease from the Sultan of Zanzibar, but it was integrated into British colonial administration with the rest of the colony of Kenya. Mombasa was the principal port for Kenya, and the start of the railroad to Kisumu. It was more like a two or three day travel from Kogelo to Mombasa back in 1961.
We also know from immigration records that Barack Obama (Sr.) was at the University of Hawaii that summer and did not leave the U.S.
If the stagers of the hoax wanted some historical believability, they would have used 35 mm. black and white photos, with Granny Sarah prominently displayed, with an Asian doctor, swaying palm trees through a window, no Kenyan flags (but maybe a picture of the Queen)
OR
A clinic in Kisumu, with photos of Granny Sarah and a whole group of Kogelo kin, and some shots back in Kogelo showing the celebration of the birth of a male, according to Luo traditions.
I contacted the artist and he replied to me. He stated that he created the image in approximately 2005. I have notified Doc and can forward the email if he so desires for proof.
Obama Born In Kenya? No
http://newyorkleftist.blogspot.com/2010/03/obama-born-in-kenya-no.html
There weren’t any roads. There was a steam locomotive, and the train trip was ~6-8 hours, overnight, with frequent stops for animals on the tracks. Then, the only way to leave Mombasa would be either steamship, or an overnight train back to Nairobi. The airport at the time was military only. Additionally, the Mombasa hospital was dependent on a generator.
It is physically impossible.
Yes there were. Some were paved, most were not. The road between Nairobi and Mombasa was unpaved for much of the way. There were roads that connected Kogelo with Kisumu, but in 1961 this was quite a slog if you didn’t have a Landrover, and I have never heard a tale that Granny Sarah zipped around in one.
But you are correct that the story of a birth in Mombasa is a mere fairy tale when logistics are considered.
Thank you. I stand corrected.
This has been dealt with. While the fact remains that Mombasa was nominally a part of the Protectorate of Kenya, and not of the Colony of Kenya, would have had an influence on one particular line in a genuine 1961 birthday certificate from Mombasa (of course there are far more discrpancies between the BC defended by Him, Lucas Smith and a genuine BC), the Protectorate was governed by the British as if was a part of the Colony. Wikipedia once said that Mombasa and surrounding area became legally a part of the Colony one day before Kenyan independence. The benefits were clear: that way the British placated the Arab ruler of Zanzibar as long as possible, while Kenya would not be termed an aggressor at African congresses, The Organzation of African Unity wanted all its members to fully repect the artificial frontiers drawn by the new arrivals.
I haven’t seen anyone mention this here yet, so for completeness’ sake: A commenter on Vimeo notes that the video shows a plastic IV bag.
I looked through all the files on the Internet until I found one that said that Baxter introduced these in 1971. Glass IV bottles would have been used in 1961.
I’m beginning to think this video may not be legit.
Also, isn’t it a matter of record that Obama Sr. never left the USA until after his sojourn at Harvard? Did the University of Hawaii verify that he was in attendance at their school for the summer term of 1961, which ended about Aug. 12?
Awesome, I totally missed that.
I agree with Doc, crowd-sourcing is a great thing. Doc didn’t want to go down the trail of the image on the calendar, I did. I didn’t even think about the I.V. dispenser, but LW did. Each person going into an area of interest and finding out what they can about that one particular piece makes the end result very full of evidence of various sorts. We should do this more often. Thanks LW for taking the time to research the IV dispenser.
The video reminds me of the “grindhouse tribute” flicks Rodriguez and Tarantino put out a couple years ago, Planet Terror and Deathproof. It’s the cheesy digital aging. Beyond the emulsion emulation, did they make any effort at sourcing period props, set dressing, costuming? Anything at all?
The thought was no one would care so long as it looked old? Talk about minimal effort.
Nimrod Kamer: a performance artist of minimal effort. I like it!
A comment on Fark mentions that the stethoscope is a modern one and not appropriate for 1960.
If this were done as a fictional movie (fictional as in a regular story telling style), I would be horrified at the shear amount of errors.
That’s true; it’s in his immigration file.
Yes, a “performance minimalist”—LOL! I do believe that’s a term that could go places! I better –™ it while I can 😛