Hello 'Pussy' it's Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and Pippi Longstocking:
You arrived in Europe on Wednesday for three days of diplomacy that will culminate in a meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, which has the potential for global repercussions and political fallout back home.
Even your top aides do not know precisely what you will decide to say or do when you and Mr. Putin meet face to face on Friday on the sidelines of the Group of 20
economic summit gathering in Hamburg, Germany.
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 ' )
Betty and Don MacDonald in Hollywood
Betty MacDonald fan club fans,
if you know who is this very beautiful lady and the handsome young guy besides James Bond send us their names, please.
It's Summer and a very beautiful day today.
Time to enjoy our garden but we have lots of work to do today.
We have to plant new flowers and my back already hurts very much.
Working in the garden can be very hard and between you and me I don't like it so very much.
My wife doesn't agree with me because she is a great gardener.
I especially adore Betty MacDonald's descriptions of her gardens especially in 'Onions in the Stew'.
We are going to publish new Betty MacDonald essays on Betty MacDonald's gardens and nature in Washington State.
If you have any interesting photos or articles regarding this subject let us know, please.
Lisa, Greta, Mats, John and other members of Betty MacDonald fan club research team would be very happy to hear from you.
Join them, please and you have lots of fun and joy working on this new Betty MacDonald fan club topic.
Do you have any books by Betty MacDonald and Mary Bard Jensen with funny or interesting dedications?
If so would you be so kind to share them.
Our next Betty MacDonald fan club project is a collection of these unique dedications.
If you share your dedication from your Betty MacDonald - and Mary Bard Jensen collection you might be the winner of our new Betty MacDonald fan club items.
Thank you so much in advance for your support.
Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel and Betty MacDonald fan club research team are working on an updated Betty MacDonald biography.
This very new Betty MacDonald biography includes all the results we got during a very successful Betty MacDonald fan club research which started in 1983.
You'll be able to find unique Betty MacDonald treasures in our Betty MacDonald biography.
Betty MacDonald biography includes for example interviews with Betty MacDonald, her family and friends.
We got many letters by Betty MacDonald and other family members even very important original ones.
Our goal is to publish a Betty MacDonald biography that shows all the details of Betty MacDonald's life and work but also to present her fascinating siblings.
Dear Betty MacDonald fan club fans let us know please what you are interested most in a future Betty MacDonald biography.
We are working on a Who is who? in Betty MacDonald's books.
Let's visit Betty MacDonald's very beautiful Vashon Island.
Wishing you a very nice Thursday,
Toni
you can join
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Vita Magica Betty MacDonald event with Wolfgang Hampel, Thomas Bödigheimer and Friedrich von Hoheneichen
Vita Magica
Betty MacDonald
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Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English )
Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English ) - The Egg and I
Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( Polski)
Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( German )
Wolfgang Hampel - LinkFang ( German ) Wolfgang Hampel - Academic ( German )
Wolfgang Hampel - cyclopaedia.net ( German )
Wolfgang Hampel - DBpedia ( English / German )
Wolfgang Hampel - people check ( English )
Wolfgang Hampel - Memim ( English )
Vashon Island - 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 - Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle - Wikipedia ( English)
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
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Trump Aides’ Biggest Worry About Europe Trip: Meeting With Putin
WARSAW
— President Trump arrived in Europe on Wednesday for three days of
diplomacy that will culminate in a meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, which has the potential for global repercussions and political fallout back home.
Even his top aides do not know precisely what Mr. Trump will decide to say or do when he and Mr. Putin meet face to face on Friday on the sidelines of the Group of 20
economic summit gathering in Hamburg, Germany. And that is what most
worries those advisers as well as officials across his administration as
Mr. Trump begins his second foreign trip as president, stopping first
in Warsaw to give an address on Thursday and then heading to Hamburg.
The
highly anticipated conversation with Mr. Putin is in many ways a
necessity, given the critical disputes separating the United States and
Russia. But it also poses risks for Mr. Trump, who faces a web of
investigations into his campaign’s possible links to Russia, as well as
questions about his willingness to take on Moscow for its military
aggression and election meddling on his behalf. The air of uncertainty
about the meeting is only heightened by the president’s propensity for
unpredictable utterances and awkward optics.
And it is not the only charged encounter awaiting Mr. Trump this week. Following North Korea’s launch on Tuesday of an intercontinental ballistic missile, he also faces new pressure to act
on a threat from Pyongyang that has long confounded American
presidents, and that he has few appealing ways to address. He is
scheduled to meet in Hamburg with President Xi Jinping of China, as he complains that Beijing has not done enough to rein in North Korea.
If
Mr. Trump’s first foreign trip, in May, was a chance for him to escape
turmoil at home — staff infighting, a stalled agenda and the
Russia-related investigations — his second will thrust him into the
maelstrom. And at the center of it, Mr. Putin awaits.
“There’s
a fair amount of nervousness in the White House and at the State
Department about this meeting and how they manage it because they see a
lot of potential risks,” said Steven Pifer, a former ambassador to
Ukraine who has worked for the National Security Council and the State
Department. “There is this gray cloud for the president of the
investigations about collusion, so any kind of a deal is going to get
the micro-scrutiny of, ‘Is this a giveaway to the Russians?’”
Mr.
Trump himself does not appear to be troubled by the meeting. He has
told aides he is more annoyed by the prospect of being scolded by the
German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and other leaders for pulling out of the Paris climate accords and for his hard line on immigration.
Mr.
Trump’s team said he might bring up Russia’s documented meddling in the
2016 election, but he is unlikely to dwell on it: Doing so would
emphasize doubts about the legitimacy of his election. Aides expect him
to focus on matters involving Syria, including creating safe zones,
fighting the Islamic State and confronting Mr. Putin’s unwillingness to
stop the government of President Bashar al-Assad from using chemical
weapons against civilians.
A
day before Mr. Trump left Washington, the White House announced that
the meeting would be a formal bilateral discussion, rather than a quick
pull-aside at the economic summit gathering that some had expected.
The
format benefits both. Mr. Putin, a canny one-on-one operator who once
brought a Labrador to a meeting with Ms. Merkel because he knew she was
afraid of dogs, will be able to take the measure of Mr. Trump.
Mr.
Trump’s aides are seeking structure and predictability. They hope that a
formal meeting, with aides present and an agenda, will leave less room
for improvisation and relegate Russia’s meddling in the campaign to a
secondary topic, behind more pressing policy concerns that the president
is eager to address.
“Nobody
has found the slightest evidence of collusion, any evidence the vote
was tampered with, so now they have turned their obsession to Russian
‘interference,’” said Kellyanne Conway, the president’s senior counselor
and former campaign manager. “I don’t think that’s what the American
people are interested in.”
Still, lawmakers in both parties are pressing the president to stand tough. They signaled their wariness last month with a 98-2 vote in the Senate to codify sanctions against Russia and require that Congress review any move by the president to lift them, a step the White House is resisting.
“Let’s be clear: The Russians interfered in our election and helped elect Donald Trump
president,” said Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island and the
ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee. “There is a
serious, ongoing criminal investigation into this matter. And President
Trump must refrain from any unilateral concessions to Russia.”
Cognizant
of the perils, the White House has planned Mr. Trump’s itinerary to
counter the perception that he is too friendly with Moscow. In Warsaw on
Thursday, he will deliver a major speech and meet with Central and
Eastern European allies, activities calculated to demonstrate his
commitment to NATO in the face of Russian aggression. But there, too,
Mr. Trump will be under pressure to do what he refused to
in Brussels during his first trip: explicitly endorse, on European
soil, the Article 5 collective defense principle that undergirds NATO.
His
advisers say that he is eager to meet with President Andrzej Duda of
Poland, a center-right politician who shares Mr. Trump’s skepticism
about migration, and that he sees a chance to make lucrative energy
deals with Mr. Duda’s government — perhaps at the expense of Russia.
But the substance and body language of his encounter with Mr. Putin will draw the most scrutiny.
“I
expect an Olympian level of macho posturing between these two leaders,
who both understand the power of symbolism,” said Derek Chollet, a
former assistant secretary of defense. “Putin will be very prepared for
this meeting. He’s someone who is a master at manipulation.”
Mr. Putin has signaled that he will press Mr. Trump to lift sanctions imposed on Russia for its annexation of Crimea,
its interference in Ukraine and its election meddling, and to hand over
Russian diplomatic compounds on Long Island and in Maryland that the
United States seized last year.
The
potential pitfalls are more than theoretical. White House officials
recall with dread the images that emerged from Mr. Trump’s May meeting
with Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey I. Kislyak
of Russia in the Oval Office, which showed the president grinning,
laughing and clasping hands with the Russian officials.
The
biggest concern, people who have spoken recently with members of his
team said, is that Mr. Trump, in trying to forge a rapport, appears to
be unwittingly siding with Mr. Putin. Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Putin has
expressed disdain for the news media, and he asserted in a recent
interview that secretive elements within the United States government
were working against the president’s agenda. Two people close to Mr.
Trump said they expected the men to bond over their disdain for “fake
news.”
“You
don’t want to come out of there saying, ‘We’re friends, and the enemy
is the deep state and the media,’” said Michael A. McFaul, a former
ambassador to Russia. “If it were somebody else other than Trump, you
could imagine a tough conversation about Ukraine and election meddling,
but that’s probably too optimistic. Politics does constrain, I think,
the parameters of the possible for any kind of major breakthrough.”
