Betty MacDonald fan club fans,
Don Woodfin was a very good friend of Betty and Donald MacDonald.
Don's son, artist and poet Perry Woodfin is Betty MacDonald fan club honor member.
Don and Perry Woodfin will be included in Wolfgang Hampel's new project Vita Magica.
Don't miss Betty MacDonald fan club birthday card contest, please.
Send a birthday card with your thoughts of Betty MacDonald and her books to us and you 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.
International Betty MacDonald fan club events are the best opportunity making wonderful friends.Great Vita Magica news!
Wolfgang Hampel's new Vita Magica guest was a very famous TV lady, author and singer.
Tatjana Geßler is an outstanding new Betty MacDonald fan club honor member.
Wolfgang Hampel aldready introduced Betty MacDonald fan club honor member - artist and author Letizia Mancino - in Vita Magica.
Other Betty MacDonald fan club honor members will follow.
The thrill of it all is that one and only Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Mr. Tigerli is back.
Enjoy a new breakfast with Brad and Nick, please.
Betty MacDonald very beautiful Vashon Island is a magical place.Many Betty MacDonald fan club ESC fans are going to meet each other in Stockholm.
Yours,
Bengt and Lotte
Don't miss this very special book, please.
Vita Magica
Betty MacDonald fan clubBetty MacDonald forum
Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English )
Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English ) - The Egg and I
Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( German )
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 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
Rita Knobel Ulrich - Islam in Germany - a very interesting ZDF ( 2nd German Television ) documentary with English subtitles
The situation in Germany and Sweden with many refugees is rather difficult.
Betty MacDonald Fan Club proudly presents:
The amazing, very witty, charming, intelligent story written by our brilliant Betty MacDonald Fan Club Honor Member - artist and writer Letizia Mancino.
WHEN YOU DREAM, DREAM BIG
Copyright 2011/2016 by Letizia Mancino
All rights reserved
Translated by D. Tsiaprakas
Betty, I love you! Your books „Anybody can do anything“ and „Onions in the Stew“ are really outstanding! I take them into my hand, and at a stone's throw I am right away in America ! Columbus and the egg: The great discovery!
Your bestseller „The Egg and I“ the greatest discovery. And you and I! I know America: It's true what you are writing: That's America: Absolutely right! No, even to the least detail! The landscape and the passion: Do you know the country where pistols blossom? Brava, Betty, you are describing the Americans vividly, genuinely, insufferably, brushed upon paper. If I like to read your works? To read doesn't even express it! I can even hear and see everything: Nature, culture, subculture.
America has almost remained unchanged! O those cool Americans! Calculating, stockmarket, Wall Street, the financial crisis (even back in 1930), the gamblers, the bankruptcy of companies! The swarming of dodgers and cheaters. People left without money. Dispair und hunger! A terrible „Worst Case“ (when I knew but little English I thought it is sausage with cheese).
Still how impressive is the ability to adaptone self of the Americans: They know how to enjoy life, acrobats of survival! In the twinkle of an eye they achieved to adapt themselves and effect the work of pioneers: In the morning you are a cleaningwoman, in the evening a brothel woman! No problem!
„The insufficient, here it's becoming an event; The indescribable, here it's done;“ Mary Bard Jensen, your sister, was the treasure trove of procuring work: My word, what a power woman with unlimited imagination! She has recommended you everywhere: Betty can do everything, also write novels! Go ahead, sister, hurry up! The editor wants to see your manuscripts! Up to that point you had not written a single line! Wow! And if still everything goes wrong? No problem: When you dream, dream big!
Just look, you have become famous.The Egg and I You know that, Betty? I'll slip into „The Egg and I“ and come and be your guest! I want to get to know your chickens. I hate chickens! I'm a chickens slave from North America! O Betty, without these damned animals, no chance of you becoming famous! „The Egg and I“ you would never have written! How many readers you have made happy!
Your book is so amusing! Your witty fine (almost nasty) remarks about your family members and roundabout neighbours made me laugh so much! You have been born into a special family: Comfort was not desired: I can't but be amazed: What did your father say to your mother? After tomorrow I am going to work elsewhere: Thousands of miles away...He sent her a telegram: LEAVING FOR TWO YEARS ON THURSDAY FOR MEXICO CITY STOP GET READY IF YOU WANT TO COME ALONG – That was on Monday. Mother wired back: SHALL BE READY, and so she was.That's America! Improvisation, change, adventure. You show no weakness: Let's go! Your descriptions, Betty, about the tremendous happenings in nature have deeply frightened me.
Continent America, I'm terrified by you! I feel so small and threatened like a tiny fly before an enormous flyswatter! Your novel is very many-sided! The reader may use it even as a cook book! „The Egg and I“ starts straight away with a recipe: „Next to the wisdom that lamb meat doesn't taste good unless it has been roasted with garlic“. Do you enjoy the American food?
O Betty, it's too fatty for me and I hate garlic! (Betty is presently cooking lunch for Bob. She's continually talking to „STOVE“: STOVE is Bob's rival; in the beginning I thought it was being himself). She turns round and says: Well, so no garlic for you. No lamb either, Betty. I don't eat any meat! I'd actually prefer only fried eggs. Betty, let me make them myself. Then you try it!
Blow! „STOVE“ out of order! I don't succeed in turning it on! Damned! It's got more of a mind of its own than „STOVE“ of my friend, Hilde Domin! Bob's coming! He must eat directly! „Men eat anything, the swines! Says your grandmother Gammy“. Is it true? Do you like my chickens? Bob asked me without introducing himself. Yes, Bob (rude) I love them! I'm vegetarian. Do you want to clean the henhouse with me tomorrow? A, you're always getting up so early at four o'clock! Bob, that's not a job for me! He looked at me disdainfully! A Roman cissy! You need a reeducation at once! Help, Bob's attacking me! I rather change the novel immediately and move to the „Island“!
The Thrills of Owning a Chicken Ranch
One hundred years ago today, Vashon Island's own Betty MacDonald was born. The author of The Egg & I, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, and many other books, MacDonald garnered a worldwide following and still has millions of fans today.
Why do I care? Number one, if you can't celebrate your local heroes, what the F can you do? Number two, my grandfather Don Woodfin
had a chicken farm in Lisabeula (an area on Vashon) in the 1940s and
'50s, and was a good friend of Betty and her family. He built them a
barn,
chicken coup, and caretaker house, all of which are now recognized
National Historical Landmarks. Don was immortalized as "the
unforgettable Marine" in Betty's book Onions in the Stew,
her story of life on Vashon. After 9/11, many members of the
international Betty MacDonald Fan Club e-mailed me to offer their best
wishes and let us know that they were thinking of us, all because he had
built her barn. It was really nice.
Click for more: architecture, chickens, Donald Woodfin, eggs, history
German Voters Punish Angela Merkel Over Migrant Policy in State Elections
The anti-immigration Alternative
for Germany party made historic gains in three state elections in
Germany on Sunday as voters used the ballot boxes to offer a rebuke to
the Chancellor's open-door refugee policy.
BERLIN—German voters dealt a stinging rebuke to Chancellor Angela Merkel and her open-door refugee policy in three state elections Sunday, delivering historic gains for an upstart anti-immigrant party and showing how the migration crisis is scrambling politics in Europe’s largest economy.
The populist Alternative for Germany, which focused its campaign on opposition to Ms. Merkel’s migrant policy, won nearly a quarter of the vote in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt. The result—several percentage points higher than recent polls had suggested—represents the party’s best total in a regional election since its founding three years ago.
The party, known as the AfD, also won parliamentary seats in two former West German states, giving it representation in eight of the country’s 16 state legislatures. That strengthens the AfD’s status as a significant political force to the right of Ms. Merkel’s conservative bloc—a turning point that her Christian Democrats long tried to prevent.
At the AfD’s election-night celebration in Berlin, supporters chanted “Merkel must go!” after the results started to come in.
“We have a very clear position on refugee policy: We don’t want to take in any refugees,” AfD deputy chairman Alexander Gauland said on German television. “All who voted for us stand behind this policy.”
Andre Poggenburg,
chairman of Alternative for Germany and top candidate of his party in
elections Sunday in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, closes the
polling booth curtain before casting his vote in Stössen, eastern
Germany.
Photo:
JENS MEYER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
“The Federal Government of Germany intends to continue to follow the course of its refugee policy, at home and abroad,” said Steffen Seibert.
Key decisions on migration are made on the federal level, not by the states.
But the results laid bare the extent to which the migration crisis has polarized German society. Left-of-center proponents of a welcoming refugee policy also recorded wins Sunday, even as Ms. Merkel’s conservatives suffered. Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union lost two close races, falling to the center-left Greens in Baden-Württemberg and the center-left Social Democrats in Rhineland-Palatinate.
In the traditionally conservative state of Baden-Württemberg, one of Germany’s economic powerhouses, the refugee-friendly Greens surged to first place behind their popular incumbent premier, Winfried Kretschmann. Ms. Merkel’s CDU failed to win first place in the southwestern state for the first time since World War II. The AfD, meanwhile, won 15%—the best postwar result for a populist or far-right party in the state.
In Rhineland-Palatinate, the other western state, incumbent state Premier Malu Dreyer of the Social Democrats beat a rising star in the CDU, Julia Klöckner. In the campaign, Ms. Klöckner took a tougher line on migrants than Ms. Dreyer did.
In Saxony-Anhalt, which suffers from one of Germany’s highest unemployment rates, the AfD’s capture of 24% of the vote was poised to upend typical political alliances. While Ms. Merkel’s CDU came in first, the results suggested that the party would need to ally with both the center-left Social Democrats and the Greens to form a government.
“The fact is: the democrats of the middle must now stand together,” said Saxony-Anhalt State Premier Reiner Haseloff, of the CDU, in a television interview. “We will build a stable government of the middle.”
“Those who want fast decisions must vote for the Christian Democratic Union,” she said at a rally Saturday in Baden-Württemberg.
Despite Sunday’s setbacks, Ms. Merkel remains in a relatively strong position at home. Her approval rating stands at 54%, according to pollster Infratest Dimap—a decline from 67% last summer but still high compared with the leaders of many other European democracies. Nationwide, the CDU is the most popular party, polling at 36%, compared with 23% for the left-of-center Social Democrats, the junior partner in Ms. Merkel’s governing coalition. In Sunday’s exit polls, a majority of voters in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate said Ms. Merkel was doing a good job handling migration.
Ms. Merkel has responded to German voters’ concerns by promising to substantially reduce the number of asylum seekers arriving in Germany from last year’s total of roughly a million. While she has refused to close the country’s borders to migrants—warning of devastating consequences for Europe’s system of passport-free travel—she has toughened asylum laws and pushed Turkey to prevent people from getting into boats bound for Greece.LARGE
German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke at an election campaign on March 8 in front of a poster of candidate Guido Wolf.
Photo:
Associated Press
The chancellor’s allies remain nervous about the AfD’s rising popularity. In a newspaper interview published Saturday, Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière, also of the CDU, said the AfD and its message were damaging to Germany.
“The AfD doesn’t have a political plan or the right answers,” Mr. de Maizière told newspaper Die Welt. “Even those who vote for it don’t think the party has better policies or can contribute to the solution. It’s just about teaching ‘them up there’ a lesson. That’s not sustainable for long.”
—Christian Grimm and Zeke Turner contributed to this article.
Write to Anton Troianovski at anton.troianovski@wsj.com 
