Monday, March 7, 2016

Betty MacDonald and a very special relationship

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

Betty MacDonald fan club fans,


Betty MacDonald fan club newsletter team and Martine, Lisa, Greta, Mats, Pieter and other members are very busy at the current time.



They are working very hard on Betty MacDonald fan club newsletter March.

We have great news.

A very interesting and fascinating letter by Betty MacDonald is waiting for you.

Betty MacDonald describes in detail her sister Mary.  

It was a very special realtionship.


We already mentioned new photos for example of Betty MacDonald's unique grandmother Gammy.


March will be very exciting because of several Betty MacDonald fan club contests.


The most important one is Betty MacDonald fan club birthday card contest. 


Send a birthday with your thoughts of Betty MacDonald and her books to us and might be our Betty MacDonald fan club contest winner.


Deadline:   March 15, 2016


You can win a first edition of Betty MacDonald's golden egg with a very cute dedication for one of her fans.


Very rare and really a wonderful copy!


Don't miss it, please.



We are going to celebrate 70th anniversary of Betty MacDonald's golden The Egg and I in Betty MacDonald fan club newsletter March.


We asked  in which languages The Egg and I has been translated?


That's your chance. Don't miss it, please.


You can win our new Betty MacDonald documentary.


The Egg and I belongs to the most successful books ever.


First published by the J. B. Lippincott Company on October 3, 1945, The Egg and I received laudatory reviews and soon appeared on the best-seller list. 

The book was a blockbuster success as a novel, being reprinted on a nearly monthly basis for the next two years.

On September 12, 1946, the specially-bound one-millionth copy of the book was presented to MacDonald by Washington Governor Monrad Wallgren at a luncheon in Seattle.


Betty MacDonald fan club newsletter March includes the names of our former Betty MacDonald fan club contest winners, the correct answers and many more info.



Anita, I'm one of your many fans. 


Many greetings to Eartha Kitt II. You are a dream team. Thank you so much for sharing the photo of you and Eartha in your living-room. It's so cute.

I admire your Betty MacDonald Fan Club story about Betty MacDonald, Robert Heskett, Donald MacDonald, Darsie Bard, Sydney Bard, Gammy, Mary Bard Jensen, Clyde R. Jensen, Sydney Cleveland Bard, Mary Alice Bard, Dorothea Darsie Bard Goldsmith, Alison Bard Burnett, Jerry Keil, Joan MacDonald Keil, Madge Baldwin, Don Woodfin, Perry Woodfin, Mike Gordon, Ma and Pa Kettle, Nancy and Plum, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, Ma and Pa Kettle and many others.
It's the best Betty MacDonald fan club story ever beside Wolfgang Hampel's Betty MacDonald and Ma and Pa Kettle biography and his magical Betty MacDonald Interviews.

Björn: I have a surprise. My parents visited the Northwest in the sixties. Both are huge Betty MacDonald Fans and they went to Vashon of course and they met ........
Mary Bard Jensen, Clyde Reynolds Jensen, Cleve Bard and Mary Alice Bard. We have many photos of the family and my father filmed them with his camera. So you can see and hear the Bard family. I'm going to present this at the next Betty MacDonald Fan Club Meeting. 


Mary Bard Jensen is very funny, indeed but you'll enjoy Clyde Jensen, Cleve and Mary Alice Bard as well. A wonderful family!

Björn, we can't wait to see the Mary Bard Jensen, Clyde R. Jensen, Cleve Bard and Mary Alice Bard interviews filmed by your father. Did Mary Bard Jensen share any info about the story of Sandra, which Betty MacDonald mentioned in her book Anybody can do anything?


We would like to learn more about Mary Bard's book published in the thirties. We know so much more about it after reading Anita's Top Betty MacDonald Fan Club story. Anita also tells the exciting story of Dorita Hess. Betty MacDonald describes this rather strange lady in Anybody can do anything. Did Mary Bard Jensen, Clyde R. Jensen, Cleve Bard and Mary Alice Bard mention her in the interviews?

Björn, excuse my many questions, please but it's so great to have the opportunity to see all the members of the Bard family. I'm overwhelmed. It's such a great feeling.
I hope we'll be able to see these interviews and the filmed Betty MacDonald interview at the next Betty MacDonald Fan Club meeting.

Jens: Wolfgang Hampel's Betty MacDonald and Ma and Pa Kettle biography and Betty MacDonald interviews have fans in 40 countries. I bet there will be many more fans in the future.
Isn' t this amazing? Wolfgang Hampel and Alison Bard Burnett are born humorists. Both delight their fans from all over the world.


I'd love to have a Wolfgang Hampel CD and DVD with his very funny poems and stories. What about a book? We adore Wolfgang Hampel's high humor and wit in Betty MacDonald and Ma and Pa Kettle biography and his wonderful Betty MacDonald interviews.

Jens, it doesn't amaze me at all. 


As you wrote Alison Bard Burnett and Wolfgang Hampel are born humorists. I heard many more Alison Bard Burnett interviews by Wolfgang Hampel will be published in the future. Come on, please. Do it! This couple is so funny. I can listen to them a million times without getting tired. Pure Bard and Hampel magic.


Wonderful story tellers, world painters, great entertainers. Alison Bard Burnett and Wolfgang Hampel share it with Betty MacDonald Fans from all over the world. 


By the way I don't like poems so much but Wolfgang Hampel's satirical poems are as witty and charming as his Betty MacDonald and Ma and Pa Kettle biography and Betty MacDonald Interviews. Wolfgang Hampel's very funny stories about everyday life make us laugh aloud.

I heard one of the next Betty MacDonald fan club newsletter stories are about our beloved Betty MacDonald fan club honor members.


My family and I are crazy about Mr. Tigerli - our unique trouble shooter!


Our unique Betty MacDonald fan club honor members are outstanding artists and writers. 


Let's go to the bookstore and enjoy a new breakfast with Brad and Nick.


I'm crazy about Jamie-Lee and her outstanding song 'Ghost'.

Yours,

Michael & David 

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 

 

Ein lyrisches Portrait von Hilde Domin

Betty MacDonald fan club fans, 

let's talk about great writers and poets Letizia Mancino, Hilde Domin and Betty MacDonald.

Betty MacDonald fan Club honor member, artist and writer Letizia Mancino shares her delightful story THE SECOND PARADISE. 


Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Mary Holmes did such a great job in translating THE SECOND PARADISE.

Thanks a million dearest Mary.

We are really very grateful.
 
I'm one of Letizia Maninco's many devoted fans.

Letizia Mancino sent this connecting piece to " The Second Paradise".

DEFIANT AS A COCK

Copyright 2011/2015 by Letizia Mancino

translated by Mary Holmes 

All rights reserved

That was how my friend Hilde Domin was, dear Betty! You would have liked her so much. She had also been in America. At that time you were a famous author but she was still unknown.

-Did she love cats like you do?

-Yes Betty, she sure did!! Otherwise how do you think she could have been a friend of mine?

-Oh Letizia, don’t boast! Hilde was famous!

-It’s all the same to me, Betty, whether a person is famous or not but that person must love animals

-Why was she as defiant as a cock?

-Well Betty, she was simply so!

-Like a pregnant woman in my “Egg and I”?

-No not so! Betty, Hilde was a whole farm!

- A farm, how was that?

- No Betty, Hilde was more! Almost a zoo! Even more. She was all the animals in the world!

-You loved her very much.

-As I love all animals. 


You Betty, if I had known you, I would have loved you exactly so because you loved animals.

-But as defiant as a cock from my Bob-farm!

-Yes and no! (Hilde really loved this double form of answer). Listen Betty , I’ll tell you a story about how Hilde was. You would certainly have loved her.
I’ll call my story “The Second Paradise”.

THE SECOND PARADISE

Copyright 2011/2015 by Letizia Mancino

translated by Mary Holmes
 

All rights reserved


The Lord God, one day, met Adam in Paradise and saw him lying under a palm.

And God spoke to him: Adam, my son, are you happy, are you content with Paradise ?

Adam answered: Oh Lord, it is wonderful!

And God said: But I will create a second Paradise and give you a wife.

Adam answered: Oh Lord, that is wonderful!

And God said: I will create the wife according to your wishes.

And Adam stood under the palm and thought hard.

And God said: Adam, are you ready?

Adam answered: My wife should be as lively as a bird but she should not fly. She should swim like a goldfish but not be a fish….. She should be as playful as a cat but not catch mice….. She should be as busy as an ant but not so small.

And God said: So shall she be: Like a bird, a goldfish, a cat, an ant…

Adam answered: Oh Lord, that is wonderful, but she should be as faithful as a dog.

And God asked: Adam, have you finished?

Oh Lord, cried Adam. She should also be as delightful and gentle as a lamb and as defiant as a cock!

….She should be as curious as a monkey and as pampered as a lapdog.

And God said: So shall she be.

And Adam said: My wife should be as courageous as a lion and as headstrong as a goat…

And God said: So, like a bird, a goldfish, a cat, an ant, a dog, a lamb, a cock, a monkey, a lapdog, a lion, a goat… and slowly and surely he wished to begin creating…

But Adam stretched himself under the palm and called:

Lord, Lord, she should be as adaptable as a chameleon but not creep on four feet.

She should have sparkling eyes like, like… real diamonds. She should be as fiery as a volcano

But … she should have crystal-clear thoughts like a mountain spring.

God, the Almighty, was speechless…

And Adam spoke: Also she should be as quick as lightening…

And God said: Man, have you finished????

No, said Adam! She should be as strong as a horse, as long living as an elephant but as light as a butterfly!

God found Adam’s thoughts were good and said: So, bird, goldfish, cat, ant, dog, lamb, cock, monkey, lapdog, lion, goat, chameleon, genuine diamonds, volcano, mountain spring, lightening, horse, elephant…. butterfly…

God wished at last to begin creating her…

Lord, called Adam… she should be as stable as steel, but as sweet as three graceful women in one…

And God asked: Should she also be a poet?

Yes, called Adam from under the palm…

And God said: Adam have you finished?

Lord, I wish that, in the second Paradise I shall be one and doubled:

So God according to Adams last words created:

HILDE PALM DOMIN

 

Very best wishes


Letizia Mancino 


The Daily 202: Five reasons Bernie Sanders lost last night’s Democratic debate





THE BIG IDEA:

Hillary Clinton is building her delegate lead, and Bernie Sanders is getting angry.
The Vermont senator needed a good night in Michigan to change the dynamic of a nominating contest that has been slipping away from him. He didn’t get it.
[Get more must-read campaign news delivered directly to your email inbox from The Daily 202]
Instead, in the seventh Democratic debate, Sanders found himself on the defensive for the first time ever over his vote against the auto bailout. He poorly handled delicate racial and gender dynamics. He seemed angry, and he came across as someone who is running to make a point – not to win. He even managed to offend the mentally ill.
While many pundits are calling the CNN debate a draw, after reading the clips and monitoring cable chatter this morning, we are convinced it was a clear loss. Here are five main reasons why:
1. Clinton caught Sanders off guard with her attacks on his vote against the auto industry bailout.
Not only is the best defense a good offense, but the element of surprise really matters in these situations. Clinton’s campaign suggested that she would focus more on contrasting herself against the Republicans, specifically Donald Trump, than attacking Sanders.
Sanders, on the other hand, has always telegraphed his attacks against Clinton ahead of time. So she knew he was going to come out swinging over her past support for trade deals that are unpopular with the Democratic base, from NAFTA to the TPP.
When he did, the former senator from New York pounced. The Wall Street bailouts that Sanders loves to brag he voted against included $82 billion for the auto industry, she noted. “If everybody had voted the way he did, I believe the auto industry would have collapsed,” Clinton said. "The money was there and had to be released in order to save the auto industry and 4 million jobs and to begin the restructuring.”
Clinton added that Barack Obama, who remains heavily popular with Democratic voters, especially African Americans, supported it. "You were either for saving the auto industry or against it,” she said. “I voted to save the auto industry. He voted against the money that ended up saving the auto industry.”
Clinton is a deft tactician, and her performance showed that she’s been to a few rodeos. Sanders, who said he protected “hard-working” Americans from bailing out “the crooks of Wall Street,” has never been quick on his feet.
Reporters abhor repetition, and this was new information after a series of debates that have included a lot of the same back-and-forth. It also played to a parochial concern ahead of Michigan’s Tuesday primary. And it happened early enough during the two-hour debate that it could make all the stories reporters needed to file before their final print deadlines.
Notably, the auto rescue exchange made the lead of the stories about the debate from  the Flint Journal, the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press.
The Clinton campaign has already turned a one-minute radio ad off the back-and-forth that will go on the air in Michigan today. (Listen here.)
2. Sanders seemed condescending when he cut off Clinton.
The 74-year-old got testy, even grumpy, multiple times. She clearly got under his skin with the auto rescue hit.
Sanders hushed Clinton as she sought to speak during the ensuing exchange. “Excuse me, I’m talking,” he said. The audience gasped.
“If you’re going to talk, tell the whole story,” Clinton replied.
“You’ll get your turn,” he snapped.
“Let me tell my story, you tell yours,” Sanders said later. “Your story is voting for every disastrous trade amendment and voting for corporate America.”
Later in the debate, he bristled again: “Let me finish, please!”
He also said, “Can I finish, please? All right?”
Sanders may speak with everyone this way (he often cuts off reporters of both genders mid-sentence), but in this case he risked offending female voters who have been wavering on whether to back Clinton.
One of the consequences of the vulgarity in the Republican race is the coarsening of our broader national discourse. While it is harder to shock the conscience than it used to be, Sanders still went too far.
An oft-quoted Michigan political analyst:
This is the Clinton campaign staffer in charge of online outreach to liberals (she was formerly at Cosmo and Essence Magazine):
Clinton allies were trying to brand it as a "Rick Lazio moment."
That said, if Team Clinton believes Sanders was bad, just imagine what three Clinton-Trump debates would look like this fall.


3. Sanders once again seemed oblivious on racial issues.
The biggest gaffe of the night was his response to a pretty straightforward question: “What racial blind spots do you have?”
His answer showed he has plenty. "When you are white, you don’t know what it’s like to be living in a ghetto, you don’t know what it’s like to be poor, you don’t know what it’s like to be hassled when you are walking down a street or dragged out of a car," Sanders said.
This, of course, suggests that there are not poor whites and non-poor African Americans. It shows the degree to which the democratic socialist views everything through a class-based lens.
African American voters accounted for 23 percent of the Democratic electorate in Michigan in the 2008 primary. He’s already trailing badly among this constituency, and talking about “the ghetto” is not going to help close the gap. 

Incidentally, Sanders also managed to offend mental health patients with a flip joke. He said the Republican field shows why money needs to be invested in mental health services. Our Yanan Wang reports that this struck a nerve with some. “I’m part of the 18.2 American adults with mental health problems,” tweeted one woman. “Bigotry is not a mental illness.”
4. Sanders sounded like a protest candidate who is running to make a point.
“We are going to stay in this campaign to the convention in July,” he said a few hours before the debate, saying what happens in the primaries will not deter him.
When hydraulic fracking came up, Clinton gave a characteristically nuanced answer that tried to wink and nod to all sides. When Sanders’ turn came, he said: “My answer is a lot shorter: No.”
It’s a reminder that Bernie is not ultimately focused on how to win states like Ohio in November, but he wants to pull the conversation leftward.
“HRC is running as a leader of a loose coalition of interests, Sanders is running as a champion of liberal interests,” Slate’s Jamelle Bouie explained. “It's noteworthy that HRC is strongest among most stalwart Democratic voters, Sanders among most ideological Democratic voters … In a real sense HRC and Sanders are running for two completely different jobs.”
Sanders was also widely mocked for invoking Wall Street when asked how he’d solve the lead water crisis in Flint.
5. Sanders failed to change the underlying dynamic of the race.  
Clinton led Sanders by nearly 200 pledged delegates after Super Tuesday. While Bernie won Nebraska and Kansas on Saturday (and Maine on Sunday), Clinton appears to have actually expanded her delegate lead because of a big win in Louisiana.
Ahead of tomorrow’s primary, polls show Sanders trailing by double digits in Michigan, where he hoped to make an impressive stand. An NBC/WSJ/Marist survey released yesterday has Clinton up 17 points (57-40) among likely primary voters. (The same poll had Trump up 19 points over Cruz.)
Chris Cillizza, who names Sanders the loser of the night, explains that the bar is getting higher for Sanders: “If you think Wall Street is the problem for much of what ails the country, you were for Sanders before this debate and certainly for him after it, too. But, as we know from the first 40 percent or so of states that have voted, there aren't enough of those people to make him the nominee. Sanders didn't knock Clinton off her game in any meaningful way, making the debate a loss for him.”
Bloomberg’s Mark Halperin, who gives Hillary a B+ and Bernie a B, says Sanders “lacked a strategy to score a definitive win and was for some too tetchy with his opponent on several occasions. Many good tactical moments on core issues but built no mosaic of contrast to knock down the front-runner.”
Other storylines—
-- The war for the soul of the Democratic Party is just beginning. “Few of the attacks from either candidate were new—but their postures onstage made it clear that even if the ultimate outcome of the nomination may soon be a foregone conclusion, the fight over what the Democratic Party stands for will go on,” writes Slate’s Josh Voorhees.
“The race for the Democratic nomination may be effectively over, or at least well on its way. But the populist fire that's being stoked by Sanders' campaign isn't dying down,” writes ABC’s Rick Klein.
-- Clinton went farther in supporting gun control than she usually does: “I think we have to try everything that works to try to limit the number of people and the kinds of people who are given access to firearms,” she said.
-- The Post’s Fact Checkers highlight 13 suspicious or notable claims from the debate. Five highlights from Glenn Kessler and Michelle Ye Hee Lee:

  • Hillary’s promise to “remove lead from everywhere” within five years is unrealistic.
  • Sanders exaggerated the number of lost jobs because of NAFTA, even beyond what a super liberal think tank thinks.
  • Clinton exaggerated what the 2005 gun law Sanders voted for did: gun manufacturers do not actually have “absolute immunity.”
  • Sanders’ promise to empty out the jails is totally unrealistic. He claims that as president he would reduce the prison population by nearly 600,000 people in four years. “That would be a tall order just by itself, but it is made harder by the fact that only a small percentage of prisoners –13 percent—are incarcerated at the federal level, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. So a President Sanders would have to force states and municipalities to make dramatic reductions.”
  • Sanders exaggerated what most scientists are saying about the dangers of fracking.
-- Read our annotated transcript here.
-- If you missed the debate, watch a three-minute recap from our video team: 

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING:
-- Sanders won the Maine Democratic caucus by 29 points (64-35). Sanders bagged his third New England victory (following New Hampshire and Vermont) as he aims to slow Clinton’s momentum and chip away at her sizable delegate lead. The Portland Press Herald reported unexpectedly high turnout at caucus sites across the state, with long lines: “Party officials estimated that 46,800 people participated in Sunday’s caucuses, beating the previous record of roughly 44,000 participants in 2008 and dwarfing the 18,650 Republicans who participated in that party’s Maine caucuses one day earlier.”
-- Rubio won the Puerto Rico Republican primary. The Florida senator swept all 23 delegates available on the island by getting 71 percent of the vote, followed by Trump at 13 percent and Cruz at 9 percent. Party officials estimate more than 30,000 people cast ballots. The win came after a miserable Saturday for Rubio: He placed third behind Trump and Ted Cruz in contests held in Kansas, Kentucky and Louisiana and fourth in Maine behind John Kasich. Trump still leads the pack with 382 delegates, while Cruz has 300 delegates, according to an AP tally. Rubio will now have 151 delegates of the 1,237 needed to secure the nomination. (Ed O'Keefe)
-- Cruz canceled his event today in Mississippi, apparently because he is sick. His main supporter in the state, failed Senate candidate Chris McDaniel, relayed on Facebook that "he evidently does not feel well." McDaniel added, "This is difficult news to deliver, but we trust that God has a plan for the campaign and for Mississippi." The primary there is tomorrow.