Linde Lund shared Smart Beautiful Pictures's photo.
Betty MacDonald Fan Club fans,
i'll contribute something special to Betty MacDonald - and Mary Bard fan club letter collection.
Dr. Clyde Reynolds Jensen was really very kind and patient.
I met some of his relatives and they said that he was very interested in Betty MacDonald's and Mary Bard Jensen's work and life of the Bard family.
Betty MacDonald's unique son-in-law and Joan MacDonald Keil's husband Jerry Keil acted the same way.
I'm going to share some of Joan MacDonald Keil's and Jerry Keil's letters.
The letters are very funny and interesting.
You'll enjoy them very much.
We can be very fortunate indeed to have these excellent Betty MacDonald Fan Club Honour members Monica Sone, Darsie Beck, Gwen Grant, Letizia Mancino, Perry Woodfin, Mary Holmes, Bernd Kunze, Tracy Tyne Hilton, Tatjana Geßler, Thomas Bödigheimer and last but not least our one and only Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Mr. Tigerli.
The Betty MacDonald fan club honor members will be included in Wolfgang Hampel's new project Vita Magica.
I like cats and hate chickens. One of our relatives had a farm and they had chickens!
If you ask me, chickens are very stupid creatures and Betty MacDonald knew them very well.
Some years ago my husband like Betty MacDonald's first husband Robert Eugene Heskett wanted to own a farm but I refused.
Daniel wasn't interested in chickens. He liked cows. I said: If this happens we'll have a divorce. We are still married. Daniel is teacher.
I'm convinced Betty MacDonald's and Mary Bard's mother Sydney Bard would criticize my behaviour very much but times have changed.
I love Daniel very much but don't follow him everywhere.
I agree with Betty MacDonald's wonderful sister Alison Bard Burnett, who is very openminded about marriages and divorces in Wolfgang Hampel's delightful Betty MacDonald Interviews.
My family and friends adore Wolfgang Hampel's very witty interviews and his outstanding Betty MacDonald and Ma and Pa Kettle biography.
More Wolfgang Hampel Interviews should be published.
We are huge fans of Wolfgang Hampel satirical poems and stories. Very funny and sharp, indeed.
I notice every time I listen to the Betty MacDonald CD how very different Betty MacDonald's and Alison Bard Burnett's voices are.
Betty MacDonald has a rather high voice and she speaks very, very quickly.
Nevertheless I love Betty MacDonald's and Alison Bard Burnett's voices and golden laughter.
Let's enjoy a great breakfast with Brad and Nick, please.
Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Mr. Tigerli is often in love with beautiful ladies and Amore is very important in his life.
What a lucky guy!
Wishing you a very nice Tuesday,
Yours,
Carla
Don't miss this very special book, please.
Vita Magica
Betty MacDonald fan clubBetty MacDonald forum
Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English )
Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( German )
Wolfgang Hampel - Monica Sone - Wikipedia ( English )
Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( English )
Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( French )
Wolfgang Hampel in Florida State University
Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel
Betty MacDonald fan club interviews on CD/DVD
Betty MacDonald fan club items
Betty MacDonald fan club items - comments
Betty MacDonald fan club - The Stove and I
Betty MacDonald fan club groups
Betty MacDonald fan club organizer Linde Lund
Refugee crisis: Sweden asks 'When is a child not a child?'
Migrant children from Syria sleep
outside the Swedish Migration Board, in Marsta, Sweden, last month. Photo: AP
Stockholm: Under huge strain from an influx of
unaccompanied children seeking asylum, the Swedish government faces
political pressure to undertake medical tests like X-rays to vet the age
of young refugees despite opposition from doctors and lawyers.The controversy reflects tensions over surging immigration into the Nordic country of 10 million after a public backlash that saw controls reimposed on the border with Denmark, from which most migrants have entered Sweden.
The police escort three men from a train at Hyllie station outside Malmo, Sweden. Interior Minister Anders Ygeman says Sweden could deport between 60,000 and 80,000 asylum-seekers in coming years. Photo: AP
Advertisement
More than a fifth, 35,000, of those reaching Sweden have been unaccompanied children, stretching services such as schools.Reports of violence and assaults at centres for minors have added to the public disquiet and hardened anti-immigrant sentiment in a country long renowned for its humanitarian open-door policy.
Counter-demonstrators gather to show their disapproval of an anti-migrant demonstration at Norrmalmstorg Square in Stockholm last week. Photo: TT/AP
Worried young adults may be swelling these ranks, many of Sweden's opposition parties are calling for medical tests. Even the government has called for more non-medical testing while it awaits reform proposals in April to break the deadlock.
There is a great incentive to claim to be a minor. Applicants have greater access to housing and schools and less chance of being deported.
Alexandra Mezher, right, with friend Lejla Filipovic. Mezher was allegedly stabbed in the back by a 15-year-old migrant at the refugee centre where she was a volunteer. Photo: Lejla Filipovic via AP
Efforts to confirm ages have been hampered by the inability of authorities to carry out medical tests – such as X-rays of teeth and hands. The government said in November it wanted the tests, but – while such tests are not illegal – doctors have refused, saying they are inaccurate.
"We believe that for a decision that has such large consequences in an individual's life, one must require higher precision," Anders Hjern, a spokesman for the Swedish Paediatric Society, said.
But doubts have not stopped the centre-right Moderates, Sweden's biggest opposition party, calling on the migration agency to hire doctors for medical checks in an effort to lower the number of children arriving without families.
"Unaccompanied minors make up around 20 per cent of asylum seekers but they cost about half the migration budget," Hanif Bali, an Iranian-born legislator for the Moderates, said. Mr Bali himself came to Sweden as an unaccompanied minor at age three.
"Out of my own experience, because I have lived in these kinds of homes, the environment becomes much harsher when you have older people there. You get prison rules and many children get caught up in the older people's troublemaking."
Many other European Union countries do carry out medical tests. Austria, for example, allows doctors to do "age determination reports" that include checks on teeth as well as genital development. In Italy, medical-age assessments, such as X-rays, can be carried out by court order.
The issue of refugee minors is especially sensitive in Sweden. Reports of assaults in overcrowded minors' centres – including of a 22-year-old female Swedish employee of one centre who was stabbed to death last week – have contributed to a sense authorities are overwhelmed.
"The risk of disputes and discontent is obvious, and some small detail may trigger conflict," said Thomas Svensson, head of social affairs for the Emmaboda municipality in south-eastern Sweden, where staff at a home for unaccompanied minors locked themselves in a room as 19 migrant youths rioted.
The influx of minors also carries big fiscal costs. Sweden last year had to find an extra 70,000 school places due to asylum seekers, on top of the 100,000 pupils that normally enter the school system for the first time in any given year.
Half of unaccompanied minors have been registered as between 16 and 17, often making age confirmation difficult and sparking accusations from the likes of the far-right Sweden Democrats – the third-biggest party in parliament – that adults are taking advantage of soft controls to enter the country.
Even without medical tests, some 667 minors had their age "adjusted" between January and November last year, according to the Justice Ministry. The data does not show if it was adjusted to above 18. That compares to 363 cases for all 2014.
Proud of Sweden's decades-old tradition as a self-proclaimed "humanitarian superpower", the government regards most refugee minors as bona fide refugees fleeing war.
Immigration supporters say Swedes have been unduly influenced by a media frenzy linking migrants with crime that has little to do with reality. For example, despite reports of refugees being associated with sexual assaults, reported rapes fell 12 per cent last year in Sweden. Thefts were down 2 per cent.
The debate is part of a crisis that has cut centre-left Prime Minister Stefan Lofven's support to record lows in polls due to a popular sense that his government is largely helpless to stop a migrant influx seen as threatening Sweden's generous welfare state and vaunted social stability.
In a sign of mounting political frustration, Migration Minister Morgan Johansson called on Sunday for the migration agency to carry out more non-medical tests, such as interviews with children.
Reuters
Follow FairfaxForeign on Twitter
Follow FairfaxForeign on Facebook