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So what does their scenario look like? And what would travel to Kenya have been like, for a woman in her third trimester of pregnancy, in 1961?
Would Barack Sr. even take a white pregnant wife to Kenya? First, his father was adamantly against inter-marriage. Second, he was
already married to a woman in his village. And Ann
Dunham could not have gone to Kenya without a
yellow fever vaccination - which cannot be given to a pregnant woman. She would also need hepatitis A, typhoid, diphtheria, and tetanus vaccinations, and a polio booster.
Well, Phil and his coterie are still insisting she went. So how did they get there?
The Boeing 707 did not go into service until late 1959. When my half-sister flew to/from New York in 1964, half of the time it was on a prop plane. The 707 had not yet replaced all the fleets. So the trip, on a prop plane, would have looked like this:
Honolulu - San Francisco, change planes
San Francisco - Chicago, change planes
Chicago - New York, change planes
New York - London, change planes
London - Nairobi
That's five days, plus layovers. The New York - London - Nairobi legs would have been on a BOAC Viscount 810, a prop plane with a top speed of 200 MPH.
How would they have paid for the trip? They were impecunious students. Ann's father was a furniture salesman, and her mother was a bank teller. Here is what the trip would have cost:
How would have they have notified Ann's mother to register their baby's birth, in Hawaii? By telephone? Sorry, trans-Atlantic telephone service did not begin
until December, 1961. The only way was by cable. In 1961, a cable cost
15 shillings per word. In constant dollars, that's
$19.29 per word. To send a cable, Barack Sr. would have gone to a Mombasa telegraph office, which would have wired Nairobi, which would have sent a cable to Western Union, which finally would have delivered a telegram to her parents. And if Madelyn
Dunham had walked into the Department Of Health on Punchbowl Street, and said she wanted to register a birth, there would have been an investigation - it's not like getting a dog license. Newspaper birth announcements are obtained from the hospital. Madelyn
Dunham could not have called both papers and have it placed like a wedding announcement.
So Ann, in her third trimester, and Barack Sr. have arrived in Nairobi, after seven days of constant air travel on a cramped prop plane. Now they have to get to
Nyang'oma Kogelo, 402km away, where Barack Sr. has a wife he married before going to the States. Crazier things have happened. The only way was
the train to Kisumu, an overnight trip with frequent stops for animals on the tracks. And then they had to travel over dirt roads for 60km, to his village on the equator - where his family lived in a thatched roof hut, without electricity or telephone.
Normally, the story would have ended there, because his father would have hit him, and his village wife would have killed him, for showing up with a pregnant white wife. Well, I guess they all got along. As I said, crazier things have happened.
Then, Barack Sr. and Ann decided to go to Mombasa, leaving his village wife behind. So, another 60km trip over dirt roads back to
Kisumu, for the train to Mombasa - a 1,169km trip. Once they were in Mombasa, Ann started to go into labor. She went to the hospital there, which got its electricity from a
cable strung along trees.
Are you with me so far? Good.
After Ann delivered the baby, under conditions she never would have in the States, they headed back to Honolulu - an overnight train to Nairobi, then one week of constant travel with a newborn, a diaper case, and luggage. Then they had to get Barack Jr. into the country, without a passport. A family passport, perhaps? Sorry, you need a family to get one. The mother was photographed with her child or children, and it was not issued in anticipation. Ann would have to be photographed holding Barack Jr. to be issued one. Perhaps she got him into the States some other way? Sorry, our president
registered for the Selective Service as required.
So Ed Hale, Philip Berg, Joseph Farah, Orly Taitz and the rest of their coterie have a tale that belongs in the fiction section, along with the rest of the potboilers, waiting to be remaindered.
The
Denialists are a motley crew of
grifters, felons, malcontents, anti-Semites and sore losers. James Manning, the latest to get on the crazy train,
has a lengthy criminal record: he burgled homes, mostly on Long Island, and spent about 3½ years in prison in NY and Florida for burglary, robbery, larceny, criminal possession of a weapon, and other charges.
Gary
Kreep's infomercials are produced and hosted by
Bill Keller, a fundamentalist minister who was imprisoned in the late '80s for an insider trading conviction.
Andy Martin is a vicious anti-Semite, who never finished a prison sentence after being mistakenly released.
Orly Taitz's antics could fill a library. Before she became the crazy train conductor, she already had been personally involved in 22 lawsuits in Orange County civil court. Her law degree is from the Taft Law School, an unaccredited correspondence outfit. And a $20,000 court sanction is hanging over her.
To be continued...