Sunday, February 28, 2016

Betty MacDonald and new details of her life



The Beauty of Nature's photo.

Betty MacDonald in the living room at Vashon on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post.



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
Betty MacDonald fan club

Betty MacDonald forum  

Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English ) 


Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English ) - The Egg and I 

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 


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.
 

17 thoughts on “Horst Seehofer: “It Will Turn Germany Into a Different Country”

  1. What is the difference between wise and smart. A smart person knows how to get out of a trouble that a wise person would not even get into in the first place. And the leaders of Germany are not even smart.
    • That is not true. He is the interior minister of Bavaria, with significant authority.
      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.
  2. If the German State allows the “family unification” policy then you could easily see a 3 or 4 factor increase in migrant numbers. We can surmise that as single young men make up the majority of migrants. So they will apply for parents, siblings and wives and children to join them. In Sweden it was reported recently on BBC that there is a imbalance of the sexes with 16 year olds. Much more males than females in recent national surveys. The explanation was that unaccompanied minors had been dispatched to Sweden as there is a more liberal family reunification policy for unaccompanied minors in Sweden. For every minor 4 or 5 family member could be brought in.
  3. The thing is, almost all the “refugees” are concentrated in the 15-40 age group, and male.
    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.
  4. God bless Herr Seehofer. He is the one politician with great authority who is speaking the truth and standing up to this ongoing insanity.
    • I wish I could agree. But I can’t. He is one of a growing number of senior pols in Europe who now see that there is personal political capital to be made out of a show of dissent. If he really meant what he is saying here, he would resign, and join and head up AfD or Pegida, giving a massive boost to the true resistance. But like 90% of west European politicians he is a hack, an apparatchik. He will grumble until it stops paying a political dividend, then he will roll over, and continue to help demonising AfD and Pegida. If there is one thing I have learnt over the last year, it is that nearly all west European political leaders are simple self-interested bags of a substance the Baron will not let me mention here.
      • I don’t know the situation with this guy very well, but what you say makes sense and I hope people will take your comment seriously. This is because a statement like “it will change Germany” sounds like something someone would say if they are VERY late to the game.
        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.
  5. He has identified the problem but baulks at the solution. Challenge, Impeach or overthrow Merkel. Why are sensible Germans in such thrall of this stupid woman? An emminent German psychoanalyst has all but declared her clinically insane and three senior German Constitutional Judges have declared her (open borders) actions ILLEGAL. Meanwhile everyone is sitting on their hands throughout the whole of the EU. If an arsonist invited themselves into your home with a box of matches and a can of petrol you would throw them out, not make them comfortable. Think of the country of as your and for God’s sake wake up!!
  6. The bright light at the end of our tunnel is CLEARLY NOW the headlight of a fast–approaching train.
    Hmmmmmmmmm……………………….
    “What do we do, now……………………………………..?
    Lemmie think, some more………………………………………

    (Yes, they reeelllly are that stupid.)
  7. …and who’s going to go to the Hofbrau Keller or buy iconic representational Cuckoo Clocks if the tee-totaling iconoclastic followers of the M man weasel their way into lederhosen land in such great numbers.
  8. The real issue is what to do when the hot war (WW III) starts. Turkey(75 mio muslims , 2nd biggest army in NATO) will fight against Russia, as Poland will do. then the Turks will overrun the Gates of Vienna. The refugies is just a diversion of our attentio.