Betty MacDonald Fan Club. Join fans of the beloved writer Betty MacDonald (1907-58). The original Betty MacDonald Fan Club and literary Society. Welcome to Betty MacDonald Fan Club and Betty MacDonald Society - the official Betty MacDonald Fan Club Website with members in 40 countries.
Betty MacDonald, the author of The Egg and I and the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle Series is beloved all over the world. Don't miss Wolfgang Hampel's Betty MacDonald biography and his very witty interviews on CD and DVD!
Hello 'Pussy' it's Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and Pippi Longstocking:
You are expected to name Anthony Scaramucci, a major
Republican donor and investor, as his new communications director, a
senior administration official said on Thursday.
Mr.
Scaramucci is one of your most trusted loyalists and a key
defender of you on television. He is expected to replace Mike
Dubke, who resigned in May after a brief and tumultuous tenure as the
communications director for a president who sees himself as his own best
spokesman.
Should I remain in bed, leave my country or fight against the dragon?
( see also the story by Wolfgang Hampel, ' Betty MacDonald: Nothing more to say ' )
Alison Sydney Beck was so witty when she shared her golden memories with Betty MacDonald fan club founder and Vita Magica organizer Wolfgang Hampel.
Betty MacDonald fan club member - author Peter Sieruta was delighted too.
Peter D. Sieruta, author of Heartbeats and other stories:
I heard
Wolfgang Hampel's Betty MacDonald Fan Club audio interview with Alison
Beck who came and stayed with her aunt Mary Bard as she wrote Best
friends at school. Mary’s own daughters were grown by that point, and
she needed a real live girl to serve as a “consultant” when writing
about young Suzie and CoCo. Alison Beck recalled that magical summer of
1960 and how the sunlight filled her aunt’s window-lined office during
the day as they worked together; in the evening they gathered around the
television to watch JFK accept the Democratic nomination for president.
Alison Beck remembered how grown-up she felt that summer, helping to
create book and discussing politics and current events with a special
aunt.
Thank you so much in advance for your support and interest.
Alison Bard Burnett's daughter and Betty MacDonald's
niece Alison Sydney Beck passed away at the age of only 65 three years ago.
Many
Betty MacDonald fan club fans from all over the world know very witty
and intelligent Alison Beck because she shared her fascinating memories
and thoughts on Alison Bard Burnett CD/DVD.
Alison Beck, Darsie Beck, Alison Bard Burnett and other Betty MacDonald fan club honor members will be included in Wolfgang Hampel's Vita Magica.
Alison Beck Obituary
Alison Beck, 65, passed away on July 19, 2014 of natural causes at her
home in Tucson, Arizona. She is survived by her son Oliver Saul of
Tucson, Arizona, brothers Darsie Beck and Bard Beck of Vashon Island,
and her nieces, nephews and second cousins.
Alison was born in
Seattle July 26, 1948 to Alison Bard and Bernard Beck. She grew up
on Vashon Island and Mercer Island. Graduating from Helen Bush School in
1966, she attended Mackinac College, and
obtained a BA in English from the University of Washington in 1992
where she worked as Editor of the Newsletter for Institute on Aging.
After several years in Todos Santos, Baja, Mexico, Alison bought a
home in Tucson in 2004. She worked at St. Ambrose School and Temple
Emanuel, and volunteered at the Tucson Botanical Gardens.
Her passions and delights were: her writing as published in Sun
Magazine, brightly colored quilt making, remodeling her home and garden,
her son, family and friends, and her devoted dogs. Those who
knew Alison remember her ability to see the humor in things and her
memorable laughter. Inquisitive, she enjoyed having long conversations.
Her artistic talents were expressed in her writing, quilt making,
creating a home filled with color, and cooking and hosting for others.
Anita and Eartha Kitt II are working on their new Betty MacDonald fan club project: Betty MacDonald's life on Vashon Island.
Our two very popular and beloved ladies are going to visit Vashon Island and other places where Betty MacDonald lived. Therefore this will be a very interesting documentary.
Trump May Turn to TV Defender for White House Communications Post
Anthony Scaramucci speaking to the news media at Trump Tower in New York in November.Credit
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
WASHINGTON
— President Trump is expected to name Anthony Scaramucci, a major
Republican donor and investor, as his new communications director, a
senior administration official said on Thursday.
Mr.
Scaramucci is one of the president’s most trusted loyalists and a key
defender of Mr. Trump on television. He is expected to replace Mike
Dubke, who resigned in May after a brief and tumultuous tenure as the
communications director for a president who sees himself as his own best
spokesman.
Mr. Trump and his daughter Ivanka Trump met with Mr. Scaramucci for more than 30 minutes on Thursday in a small dining room off the Oval Office, the official said.
Mr. Scaramucci could not be reached for comment. His expected appointment was reported by the website Axios.
Mr.
Scaramucci is close to Mr. Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. He is
also respected by Ms. Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, who is a
senior adviser to the president. And Mr. Scaramucci has a direct line to
the president, whom he has known for years.
Even
so, his appointment would be unusual, given his lack of a traditional
communications portfolio. But he has been seen as an avid and effective
defender of the president on television as the number of Mr. Trump’s
open backers has dwindled.
Mr. Scaramucci was recently the subject of a retracted story by CNN
that dealt with investigations into the Trump campaign’s ties to
Russia. He accepted an apology from the network, but Mr. Trump’s
supporters were gratified by Mr. Scaramucci’s approach to getting the
story removed.
It
is unclear if Mr. Scaramucci’s appointment will be blocked by Reince
Priebus, the White House chief of staff. Officials have said Mr. Priebus
helped jettison an earlier plan to put Mr. Scaramucci in the White
House Office of Public Liaison.
Mr.
Priebus was not aware of the expected appointment before it was made
public, according to the senior administration official, who spoke on
the condition of anonymity.
Trump and Putin Held a Second, Undisclosed, Private Conversation
President Trump with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia at the G-20 summit meeting in Hamburg, Germany, this month.Credit
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
WASHINGTON — Hours into a dinner with world leaders who had gathered for the Group of 20 summit meeting, President Trump left his chair at the sprawling banquet table and headed to where President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was seated.
The
two presidents had met earlier in the day for the first time and, as
the White House put it, had developed a rapport even as they talked
about Russia’s interference in the United States’ 2016 elections.
The
July 7 meeting in Hamburg, Germany, was the single most scrutinized of
the Trump presidency. But it turned out there was another encounter: a
one-on-one discussion over dinner that lasted as long as an hour and
relied solely on a Kremlin-provided interpreter.
No
presidential relationship has been more dissected than the one between
Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin, a dynamic only heightened by the swirl of
investigations into whether Mr. Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia to
sway the election in his favor. Nevertheless, the meeting was confirmed
by the White House only on Tuesday, after reports surfaced that some of
the guests had been surprised that it occurred.
The
dinner discussion caught the attention of other leaders around the
table, some of whom later remarked privately on the odd spectacle of an
American president seeming to single out the Russian leader for special
attention at a summit meeting that included some of the United States’
staunchest, oldest allies.
A
White House official said there was nothing unusual about it. And in
two tweets late Tuesday, Mr. Trump derided news reports about it as
“sick.” He said the dinner was not a secret, since all of the world
leaders at the summit meeting and their spouses had been invited by
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany. “Press knew!” he tweeted.
“Even a dinner arranged for top 20 leaders in Germany is made to look sinister!” Mr. Trump added.
While
the leaders-and-spouses dinner was on Mr. Trump’s public schedule, the
news media was not allowed to witness any part of it, nor were reporters
provided with an account of what transpired. Mr. Trump’s traveling
press contingent did note, however, that his motorcade left the dinner
four minutes after Mr. Putin’s did.
The
dinner at which the private conversation took place stretched for more
than three hours after a concert for the leaders and their spouses at
the Elbphilharmonie, a concert hall on the banks of the Elbe River.
In
the earlier, formal meeting, Mr. Trump said later, he asked the Russian
president twice about his role in the American vote. Mr. Putin denied
involvement, and the two men agreed to move beyond the dispute in the
interest of finding common ground on other matters, including a limited
cease-fire in Syria.
There
is no official United States government record of the intimate dinner
conversation, because no American official other than the president was
involved.
“Pretty
much everyone at the dinner thought this was really weird, that here is
the president of the United States, who clearly wants to display that
he has a better relationship personally with President Putin than any of
us, or simply doesn’t care,” said Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia
Group, a New York-based research and consulting firm, who said he had
heard directly from attendees. “They were flummoxed, they were confused
and they were startled.”
The
encounter occurred more than midway through the lengthy dinner, when
Mr. Trump left his chair and approached Mr. Putin, who had been seated
next to the first lady, Melania Trump. It was described to Mr. Bremmer
by other guests as lasting roughly an hour and not initially disputed by
a White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
But
Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, disputed that account. He
said Mr. Trump had described the exchange with Mr. Putin as purely
social, and as lasting far less than an hour. “It was pleasantries and
small talk,” Mr. Spicer said. In a separate statement, the White House
said the two presidents had spoken through the Kremlin’s interpreter
because the American translator with Mr. Trump did not speak Russian.
Experts
in United States-Russia relations said such an encounter — even on an
informal basis at a social event — was a concern because of its length,
which suggested a substantive exchange, and because there was no note
taker or national security or foreign policy aide present.
“We’re
all going to be wondering what was said, and that’s where it’s
unfortunate that there was no U.S. interpreter, because there is no
independent American account of what happened,” said Steven Pifer, a
former ambassador to Ukraine who also specializes in Russia and nuclear
arms control.
“If
I was in the Kremlin, my recommendation to Putin would be, ‘See if you
can get this guy alone,’ and that’s what it sounds like he was able to
do,” added Mr. Pifer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in
Washington.
The
Trump administration is struggling to improve its relationship with
Russia while under pressure from multiple investigations into possible
ties between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Moscow. Those inquiries have cast a
shadow over what would normally be seen as an attempt at diplomacy
between world leaders.
The
evening after his two meetings with Mr. Putin — the first lasting 135
minutes and the second an hour — Mr. Trump returned to Washington. On
the Air Force One
flight back, his top advisers helped draft a statement about a meeting
his son Donald Trump Jr. attended last year with a Kremlin-connected
lawyer who promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton.
“We
have the worst relationship as a country right now with Russia that we
have in decades, and yet we have these two leaders that, for reasons
that do not make sense and have not been explained to anyone’s
satisfaction, are hellbent on adoring each other,” Mr. Bremmer said.
“You can take everything that’s been given to us, and it doesn’t add
up.”
On
Tuesday, the Kremlin intensified its demands that the Trump
administration return two compounds in the United States that the Obama
administration seized from Russia last fall in retaliation for the
election meddling. After meeting with Thomas A. Shannon Jr., the under
secretary of state for political affairs, Sergei A. Ryabkov, Russia’s
deputy foreign minister, said he had warned the Americans that there
must be an “unconditional return” of the property or Moscow would
retaliate.
The State Department said no such agreement was in store.
“These
deals, so to speak, are going to take some time,” Heather Nauert, the
State Department spokeswoman, told reporters on Tuesday. “Nothing is
coming together anytime soon.”
Mr. Trump announced on Tuesday night that he planned to nominate Jon M. Huntsman Jr.,
a former envoy to China and Singapore, as his ambassador to Russia. Mr.
Huntsman’s nomination has been expected for months, but the
investigations into Mr. Trump’s campaign and whether it colluded with
Russia are likely to figure prominently in his confirmation hearing.
Canary Kate! Duchess stuns in yellow as she arrives with William at German cancer centre
THE Duchess of Cornwall brought a ray of sunshine to
Germany today as she stunned in a yellow dress alongside William for a
visit to German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg.
The
Duke and Duchess, who are on a three-day tour of Germany with Prince
George and Princess Charlotte, began their day in the university city
where they will meet researchers and visit the stem cell research lab to
learn more about their work.
–– ADVERTISEMENT ––
Kate stunned in a yellow lace frock, designed by Jenny Packham, which she teamed with a nude pair of Monsoon wedge heels.
Excited locals shouted out her name and waved Union flags outside.
But Kate's stunning dress wasn't on show for long as she quickly changed into a lab coat for a tour of the centre.
GETTY
Kate changed into a lab coat for her tour of the research centre Inside
British stem cell biologist Dr Michael Milsom, 42, originally from
Chesterfield, showed the couple around one of the laboratories. He said: "It's really helpful to have a visit from the Duke and Duchess as they publicise the importance of work we do here. "The
UK and Germany are leaders in this field of stem cell research," said
the expert who has been based in Heidelberg for seven years. He told William and Kate about the latest developments in stem cell research. The
Leeds University graduate, told them how his team focuses on the
question whether and how an accumulation of DNA damage in stem cells is
the causes for ageing of an organ system. Such damage may cause
exhaustion of the stem cell pool and loss of the organ's capacity to
regenerate. The work is particularly important in research into
leukaemia. William said, "Ladies first" when he was asked to look at the cells through a microscope. Afterwards Kate said: "It's in 3D too, which is amazing."William,
who also looked through the microscope, asked how far down the line the
centre's stem cell research was and added: "It's fascinating work." The British stem cell researcher leads the junior research group Experimental Hematology. He
added said: "I had never imagined that I would one day be presenting my
research to my future King. This will be a very moving and exciting
meeting for me" Dr. Michael Baumann, chairman and scientific chair
of the DKFZ - the centre's German initials - said afterwards: "We are
very proud that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have decided to visit
the DKFZ. They have made a clear gesture which underlines the great
importance of medical research for our society." His colleague,
Prof Dr. Josef Puchta, commercial chairman, added: "The decision to come
to the DKFZ also serves to show that we are recognized internationally
as a leading research institution." The royals were welcomed by
Winfried Kretschmann, governor of the state of Baden-Württemberg, and
the board of directors of the DKFZ. They also met the Nobel Prize winner and long-time chairman of the DKFZ, Professor Harald zur Hausen, for a brief conversation. Zur
Hausen identified the Papillomavirus as the cause of cervical cancer
and therefore paved the way for the development of a vaccine against
this illness.
The royal couple also got their
hands dirty as they were pictured trying their hand at making
traditional German pretzels during a vist to a market in the Central
Square.
Betty MacDonald Fan Club, founded by Wolfgang Hampel, has members in 40 countries.
Wolfgang Hampel, author of Betty MacDonald biography interviewed Betty MacDonald's family and friends. His Interviews have been published on CD and DVD by Betty MacDonald Fan Club. If you are interested in the Betty MacDonald Biography or the Betty MacDonald Interviews send us a mail, please.
Several original Interviews with Betty MacDonald are available.
We are also organizing international Betty MacDonald Fan Club Events for example, Betty MacDonald Fan Club Eurovision Song Contest Meetings in Oslo and Düsseldorf, Royal Wedding Betty MacDonald Fan Club Event in Stockholm and Betty MacDonald Fan Club Fifa Worldcup Conferences in South Africa and Germany.
Betty MacDonald Fan Club Honour Members are Monica Sone, author of Nisei Daughter and described as Kimi in Betty MacDonald's The Plague and I, Betty MacDonald's nephew, artist and writer Darsie Beck, Betty MacDonald fans and beloved authors and artists Gwen Grant, Letizia Mancino, Perry Woodfin, Traci Tyne Hilton, Tatjana Geßler, music producer Bernd Kunze, musician Thomas Bödigheimer, translater Mary Holmes and Mr. Tigerli.
