Betty MacDonald fan club fans,
Sorry to take so long getting back to you--I ended up buying a new printer to finish the job of downloading...Wow, I am impressed! You really worked hard to gather all this stuff.
After fifty years it must have been quite a quest! Good for you. For years we have all had questions and you have followed through with trying to find answers.
My sister (I took her ALL the pages two days ago) was the most pleased I have seen her in YEARS. She says she is STILLL reading it. So, can we expect more to come ? ? Another delighted fan, Caroline Thanks again.
What surprised me the most after reading The Kettles' Million Dollar Egg, The Egg and Betty....probably the lawsuit (I had not ever hear about that); maybe the fact that so many people believed it was a true story (it seems to me that it was catalogued and shelved as FICTION in libraries at one time)...maybe 'faction' would be appropriate...
Why do I think Bob didn't appear? I've always wondered where he went..I wonder how Don MacDonald liked being Mr. Betty or "BOB" ....in some people's minds.
I guess I read the first E & I in the 1950's -- I remember Onions in the Stew being, I think, a Reader's Digest book?? or maybe Book of the Month...living in a small town with no bookstores, my mom belonged to book clubs & that would be where I began reading about Betty. Anyway, we were a reading household..I guess I would be 12 or 13 ??
My sister is the most devoted fan--re-reads Betty books ...she was in Seattle a few years back when her husband needed medical treatment at hospital there...she went to all the second hand bookstores but said copies were impossible to find. I have said for about 25 years that someone should do what you people have done...so many so curious as to other details of her life--Betty I mean...Sad that she died so young--was she not still in her 40s?? So much talent and so long remembered.
My experiences with chickens were at my grandmother's farm as a child. . Hard work & little reward. Of course in Betty & Bob's case it was the Depression and people were scrambling just to get the basics. Certainly in our family--pioneers in USA and Canada...one of my uncle's lived a life very like Egg & I in a mountain valley a few hours from here--logging with horses, growing cherries for sale, etc. His wife was a very hardworking lady -- she probably enjoyed the E & I too at the time it was published. He wrote a book--kind of a memoir which his children had published in limited edition.
Much of it probably libellous...but fun. Books are like that--even his own brothers differed on what was true and false...it is all perception, I think.
I have been to the Seattle, Portland (Ore.) area and lived on Vancouver Island in several different towns....yes, it is all very beautiful. I never saw a Geoduck but certainly we dug our own clams, had free prawns, bought huge fish from the Indians (illegally even then) and this was in the 1960's...
My last trip to Vancouver Island was in the 1990's I think...if one travels to any of the more remote communities (usually accessible by ferry or only plane/boat even now) you will find much unchanged. It is reassuring in many ways.
So the Egg and I life still exists out here in the wilds of Canada....
Best wishes,
Caroline
Don't miss this very special book, please.
Vita Magica
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Horst Seehofer: “It Will Turn Germany Into a Different Country”
Germany has a federal structure, and the state of Bavaria has its own interior minister, Horst Seehofer. Mr. Seehofer’s party, the CSU, is the Bavarian equivalent of the CDU, which is Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party. The two parties are part of the current governing coalition (which also includes the socialists). Mr. Seehofer and his party have been quite critical of Mrs. Merkel and her “Come on in, boys” immigration policy, and there has been friction between the two parties as a result.
In the video below, Horst Seehofer talks to the press about the simple mathematics of family reunification policy, and what it will do to Germany in the near future. Even the most conservative estimates indicate impending disaster for the country.
Many thanks to Nash Montana for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
Transcript:
45:38 | But we can’t just meet every three months and say | |
45:41 | in three months we’ll meet again. | |
45:46 | The numbers have been stated. | |
45:49 | I am calculating very, very modestly here, | |
45:53 | to exclude any kind of acrimony here, | |
45:56 | but if this continues, then this year we will get more refugees than last year. | |
46:02 | And we’re not even calculating family reunification. | |
46:05 | And with those who are counting on family reunification, I am calculating | |
46:10 | on a totally conservative basis. | |
46:14 | I am assigning for each refugee a factor of 0.5. | |
46:19 | Yesterday experts told us that one could easily reckon factors of 2, 3, and 4. | |
46:25 | I am only calculating 0.5, and that means, translated, that only every second refugee | |
46:30 | will bring in one family member with him. | |
46:35 | Then you’ll arrive at three million. | |
46:40 | You may gladly trade with me, with the both of us. | |
46:43 | Think of what this means for safety, for integration, | |
46:48 | for financial feasibility, for the functionality of our administration, | |
46:54 | including the judicial branch, in Germany and in Bavaria. | |
47:00 | It will turn it into a different country. | |
47:05 | And the people do not want Germany, or Bavaria, to become a different country. | |
47:11 | And this is… truly reserved… formulated, | |
47:17 | because it also corresponds to our responsibility. | |
47:21 | I have — we have no interest in any agitators | |
47:25 | trying to profit politically from this. | |
47:30 | But one does not stop profiteers by keeping quiet about this. |
There is talk of Bavarian secession from the Bundesrepublik. If that happens, Seehofer will be a significant player in the new independent Republic of Bavaria.
Figure that they either already have families that they will want to bring with them, his 0.5-4 factor, OR that they will look for foreign spouses (I doubt that too many German women will be interested, really). Figure either way you’re looking at it, you’re doubling the cohort of whomever is allowed to stay.
BUT IT GETS WORSE. Because these are the childbearing years.
Add the badly integrated existing minority populations in Germany, AND the low birth rate of native Germans, and you’re looking at 20-30% of the under-50s within 10-20 years, is my conservative estimate.
Here’s how I get there. Approx 80 million Germans. Assume that they are evenly distributed, roughly. So you have 40 million under 40s. Approximately 10% are probably already immigrants. Figure that 1/2 are badly integrated. So that’s 4 million. Add another million “refugees” + spouses, you’re now at 6 million in this age group. 6/40 = 15%. Figure an average of 3 kids apiece, vs 1.5 for native Germans. Add 20 years. We’re getting into that 20-30% range very easily.
Over 50s, and even most over 40s really don’t count in these projections, though they serve to pretend that the problem isn’t as bad as it looks.
Refugees 50+ aren’t really a population demographic issue, but a temporary problem. It’s the ones of childbearing years that will lead to long-term changes.
Germany either starts mass expulsions NOW, or they’re going to have a major demographic shift, and it won’t be a good one. The fear of being compared to nazis will likely stop a mass expulsion idea. So basically, they’re screwed.
A catastrophic civil war worse than Lebanon, the Balkans or Syria is now baked into Europe’s cake. This fate cannot be extracted. Europe either becomes fully Islamized under their sellout Quisling leaders, or there is a social explosion from below and a terrible civil war. No other way out. The last exits were passed years ago.
Tet, Take Two: Islam’s 2016 European Offensive http://gatesofvienna.net/2015/11/tet-take-two-islams-2016-european-offensive/
Where has this guy been? I remember hearing grumbling from a high school German language teacher around 25 years ago about how Germany no longer seemed like Germany.
Hmmmmmmmmm……………………….
“What do we do, now……………………………………..?
Lemmie think, some more………………………………………
(Yes, they reeelllly are that stupid.)