Monday, November 21, 2016

Betty MacDonald, Ma and Pa Kettle, favourite recipes and unsecured phone lines


mrs. piggle wiggle, hello_english_cassette_FRONT

Hello 'Pussy', this is Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. 
You took calls from foreign leaders on unsecured phone lines,
without consulting the State Department. NOOOOOOOO!

plague_English_1994_paperback_FRONT
  
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 ' )
plague_english_1948_paperback_FRONT
plague_German_1952_hardcover_bookjacket - cleaned_FRONT

The Egg and I Film Illustration























Betty Bard MacDonald's photo. 

The Betty MacDonald Networks Foto.

Click images for alternate views
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Betty MacDonald's sister Alison Bard Burnett


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Betty MacDonald's mother Sydney with grandchild Alison Beck
Betty MacDonald in the living room at Vashon on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post.
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle author Betty MacDonald on Vashon Island
<p>Time Out of Mind (1947) - avec Betty et Don MacDonald et Phyllis Calvert</p>

Betty and Don MacDonald in Hollywood

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Betty MacDonald fan club fans,




Wolfgang Hampel's Ma and Pa Kettle biography is much funnier than a Ma and Pa Kettle movie. 

When Betty MacDonald's sister Alison Bard Burnett talkes about her experiences with the Kettles even my mother-in-law is laughing. This is very surprising because she laughs very seldom. 

We don't have neighbours like the Kettles. Our neighbours are like Mr. and Mrs. Hicks.


They have no children. We have a boy and two girls. Mr. and Mrs. Hicks are cutting down everything in the garden. Ours looks like a paradise or a green hell with many trees and branches. Mr. Hicks always says to us: If you need help I'll cut everything down for you but we refuse so far. We have two dogs. Mr. and Mrs. Hicks don't like dogs or cats because Mrs. Hicks is very allergic. By the way we won't ever have any chickens although is seems that our children bring a new pet home every day. I know what they are talking about when they say: Mother, we have a surprise! You won't believe it! ( I do! )

Mrs. Hicks is cleaning the house night and day and is called ' our newspaper' because she knows everything about the people in our community. 


You know I thought it was a very witty idea to lend our Mrs. Hicks Betty MacDonald's The Egg and I which she wasn't aware of. After she read Betty MacDonald's book she said smiling: It was very funny but I dislike this awful Mrs. Hicks. She obviously doesn't understand the meaning of life. I couldn't say anything and looked at her with an open mouth. Mrs. Hicks gave me a strange look and said: Darling, is everything ok with you? You look terrible this morning!

I want to share a very special Betty MacDonald family story. My grandmother wrote letters to Betty MacDonald, Mary and Sydney Bard because she loved Betty MacDonald's and Mary Bard's books. She was very fond after she got delightful letters written by Betty MacDonald, Mary Bard and even from mother Sydney Bard. I'll write a Betty MacDonald Fan Club Article about it.

My girls and I like like Betty MacDonald's Nancy and Plum, The Egg and I, Anybody can do anything and Onions in the Stew. My hubby as he has the same profession as Mary Bard's husband Dr. Clyde Jensen prefers Betty MacDonald's The Plague and I and Mary Bard's The doctor wears three faces. Our boy likes the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle Stories. He always says: I don't behave like the boys and girls in the books and don't need a Piggle-Wiggle cure. I'm not sure. Not at all!

We can't wait to read Gwen Grant's books. We are very fond of Monica Sone's Nisei Daughter. Monica Sone, who is Kimi in Betty MacDonald's The Plague and I, is our favourite person in Betty MacDonald's books.

We would like to visit the state of Washington, Seattle, Laurelhurst and Vashon Island and attend one of Darsie Beck's workshops.

Congratulations! Betty MacDonald Fan Club has the most interesting and fascinating Betty MacDonald Honour members. 


Betty MacDonald cook fan club project is really a fascinating one.

Betty MacDonald fan club letter collection includes several letters of Betty MacDonald.

Betty MacDonald explained in detail the questions regarding Gammy's cooking.

I can imagine very well how Betty, Mary and her siblings felt because I had a grandmother like this.

She was the most wonderful and charming person on earth but her cooking was dreadful.

We children were very much afraid of it like Betty MacDonald and her family.

Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Mr. Tigerli can be very happy and grateful to have a gourmet cook like 'Italian' Betty MacDonald - Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Letizia Mancino.

It would be very nice if Mr. Tigerli and Letizia Mancino could share some of their favourite recipes.

We are very curious.

Thanks a million in advance! 



We are going to publish new Betty MacDonald essays on Betty MacDonald's gardens and nature in Washington State.

Betty MacDonald fan club newsletter November will be very interesting because we'll share new outstanding Betty MacDonald fan club research results. 


It will be available on Wednesday.
   
You shouldn't miss our International Betty MacDonald fan club events  because you can make the most wonderful friends there.


My favourite city is Seattle.

If you have any info regarding Betty MacDonald's favourite recipes, let us know, please.

Betty MacDonald and Mary Bard Jensen wanted to publish a cookbook.

Do you know the title?

If so send a mail please and maybe you'll be the winner of several new Betty MacDonald fan club items.

Lisa and Betty MacDonald fan club cooking research team are working on a new item 'Betty MacDonald and her favourite recipes'.
 

Betty MacDonald fans asked their favourite writer many questions regarding her cooking and recipes.

There had been many excellent cooks in the Bard family, for example Betty MacDonald's mother Sydney Bard. 

Betty MacDonald's husband Donald Chauncey MacDonald tried to be a good cook too.

Can you remember his favourite recipe?

If so send us mail and you can win the new Betty MacDonald fan club item 'Betty MacDonald and her favourite recipes'.

               Deadline: November 30, 2016
 
Good luck!


Betty MacDonald's daughter Joan was a beauty.

I was rereading Onions in the Stew and Betty described how Joan and Jerry met each other.

What a great story!



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New Betty MacDonald documentary will be very interesting with many interviews never published before.


Eartha and I adore Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Mr. Tigerli 


Thank you so much for sharing this witty memories with us.


Wolfgang Hampel's literary event Vita Magica is very fascinating because he is going to include Betty MacDonald, other members of the Bard family and Betty MacDonald fan club honor members.

It's simply great to read Wolfgang Hampel's  new very well researched  stories about Betty MacDonald, Robert Eugene Heskett, Donald Chauncey MacDonald, Darsie Bard, Sydney Bard, Gammy, Alison Bard Burnett,  Darsie Beck, Mary Bard Jensen, Clyde Reynolds Jensen, Sydney Cleveland Bard, Mary Alice Bard, Dorothea DeDe Goldsmith, Madge Baldwin, Don Woodfin, Mike Gordon, Ma and Pa Kettle, Nancy and Plum, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and others.
 

The next Vita Magica events will be on November 25 and November 29, 2016.


Don't miss Letizia Mancino and Wolfgang Hampel on November 29, please.

Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel and Letizia Mancino are reading from her delightful book ' The cat in Goethe's bed '.

Linde Lund and many fans from all over the world  adore this funny sketch by Wolfgang Hampel very much although our German isn't the best.

I won't ever forget the way Wolfgang Hampel is shouting ' Brexit '.

Don't miss it, please.

It's simply great!

You can hear that Wolfgang Hampel got an outstandig voice.

He presented one of Linde Lund's favourite songs ' Try to remember ' like a professional singer.

Thanks a million!

Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Mr. Tigerli  and our 'Italian Betty MacDonald' - Betty MacDonald fan club honor member author and artist Letizia Mancino belong to the most popular Betty MacDonald fan club teams in our history.

Their many devoted fans are waiting for a new Mr. Tigerli adventure.

Letizia Mancino's  magical Betty MacDonald Gallery  is a special gift for Betty MacDonald fan club fans from all over the world.


Don't miss Brad Craft's 'More friends', please. 

Betty MacDonald's very beautiful Vashon Island is one of my favourites.


The very witty Betty MacDonald satire by Wolfgang Hampel  Betty MacDonald: Nothing more to say is outstanding. 

And I totally agree with Betty MacDonald in this satire which isn't a satire at all as you can read below.



'Pussy' took calls from foreign leaders on unsecured phone lines, without consulting the State Department.
He spent the 2016 campaign savaging Hillary Clinton for her reckless violation of the State Department’s protocols for transmitting information. 

He has spent the past week taking calls from foreign leaders — on the unprotected phone lines of his Tower — without first soliciting pertinent briefings, in defiance of longstanding practice.

Referred to his White House transition as though it were the next season of The Apprentice.

Don't miss this article below, please.

His behaviour is a joke - but a very bad one! 

mrs. piggle wiggle, hello_english_cassette_FRONT


Hello 'Pussy', this is Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. 

You took calls from foreign leaders on unsecured phone lines, without consultung the State Department. We have to change your silly behaviour with a new Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle cure. I know you are the most difficult case in my career - but we have to try everything.......................


Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel sent his brilliant thoughts. 

Thank you so much dear Wolfgang! 



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Hi Libi, nice to meet you. Can you feel it?

I'll be the most powerful leader in the world.


Betty MacDonald: Nothing more to say

Copyright 2016 by Wolfgang Hampel

All rights reserved 


Betty MacDonald was sitting on her egg-shaped cloud and listened to a rather strange guy.

He said to his friends: So sorry to keep you waiting. Very complicated business! Very complicated!

Betty said: Obviously much too complicated for you old toupee!

Besides him ( by the way the  First Lady's place ) his 10 year old son was bored to death and listened to this 'exciting' victory speech. 

The old man could be his great-grandfather.

The boy was very tired and thought: I don't know what this old guy is talking about. Come on and finish it, please. I'd like to go to bed.

Dear 'great-grandfather' continued  and praised the Democratic candidate.

He congratulated her and her family for a very strong campaign although he wanted to put her in jail.

He always called her the most corrupt person ever and repeated it over and over again in the fashion of a Tibetan prayer wheel.

She is so corrupt. She is so corrupt.  Do you know how corrupt she is? 

Betty MacDonald couldn't believe it when he said: She has worked very long and very hard over a long period of time, and we owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country.

Afterwards old toupee praised his parents, wife, children, siblings and friends. 

He asked the same question like a parrot all the time:

Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?
I know you are here!

Betty MacDonald answered: No Pussy they are not! They left the country.

They immigrated to Canada because they are very much afraid of the future in the U.S.A. with you as their leader like the majority of all so-called more or less normal citizens. 

By the way keep your finger far away from the pussies and the Red Button, please.


I'm going to fly with my egg-shaped cloud to Canada within a minute too.

Away - away - there is nothing more to say! 


Real vs. Ersatz









I can understand the reason why Betty MacDonald, Barbara Streisand, other artists and several of my friends want to leave the United States of America.


I totally agree with these comments:

This is incredible! I'll You get what you pay/vote for and Trump is the epitome of this ideology. America I won't feel bad for you because you don't need my sympathy for what's coming but I am genuinely scared for you. 'Forgive them lord for they know not who they do' or maybe they do but just don't care about their future generations who will suffer for this long after the culprits have passed away. 

Is the USA like North Korea where you can't trust other politicians?

That's it. 

Put Ivanka in! Put Ivanka in! Put my whole family and friends in! '

What about Putin? 

Or the leaders from China and North Korea?

Wouldn't it be a great idea to put them in too?

What about very intelligent and qualified Sarah Palin? 


André Maurice Dayans Foto.



I found this in Wikipedia about her:

In 2006, Palin obtained a passport[88] and in 2007 traveled for the first time outside of North America on a trip to Kuwait. There she visited the Khabari Alawazem Crossing at the Kuwait–Iraq border and met with members of the Alaska National Guard at several bases.[89] On her return journey she visited injured soldiers in Germany.[90]

That's the reason why very intelligent and brilliant Sarah Palin knows the World very well. 

Sarah and ' Pussygate '  will rule America and the World - what a couple. 


I am neither Christian enough nor charitable enough to like anybody just because he is alive and breathing. I want people to interest or amuse me. I want them fascinating and witty or so dul as to be different. I want them either intellectually stimulating or wonderfully corny; perfectly charming or hundred percent stinker. I like my chosen companions to be distinguishable from the undulating masses and I don't care how. - Betty MacDonald




Daniel Mount wrote a great article about Betty MacDonald and her garden.

We hope you'll enjoy it very much.

I adore Mount Rainier and Betty MacDonald's outstanding descriptions

Can you remember in which book you can find it?

If so let us know, please and you might be the next Betty MacDonald fan club contest winner. 

I hope we'll be able to read Wolfgang Hampel's  new very well researched  stories about Betty MacDonald, Robert Eugene Heskett, Donald Chauncey MacDonald, Darsie Bard, Sydney Bard, Gammy, Alison Bard Burnett,  Darsie Beck, Mary Bard Jensen, Clyde Reynolds Jensen, Sydney Cleveland Bard, Mary Alice Bard, Dorothea DeDe Goldsmith, Madge Baldwin, Don Woodfin, Mike Gordon, Ma and Pa Kettle, Nancy and Plum, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and others - very soon.

It' s such a pleasure to read them. 

Let's go to magical Betty MacDonald's  Vashon Island.



Betty MacDonald fan club organizer Linde Lund  and Betty MacDonald fan club research team share their recent Betty MacDonald fan club research results.

Congratulations! They found the most interesting and important info for Wolfgang Hampel's oustanding  Betty MacDonald biography.

I enjoy Bradley Craft's story very much.  


Don't miss our Betty MacDonald fan club contests, please. 

 
You can win a never published before Alison Bard Burnett interview by Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel. 

Good luck!  

This CD is a golden treasure because Betty MacDonald's very witty sister Alison Bard Burnett shares unique stories about Betty MacDonald, Mary Bard Jensen, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and Nancy and Plum. 


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.



 


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Thank you so much for sending us your favourite Betty MacDonald quote.


More info are coming soon.




Wolfgang Hampel's Betty MacDonald and Ma and Pa Kettle biography and Betty MacDonald interviews have fans in 40 countries. I'm one of their many devoted fans. 


Many Betty MacDonald  - and Wolfgang Hampel fans are very interested in a Wolfgang Hampel CD and DVD with his very funny poems and stories.


We are going to publish new Betty MacDonald essays on Betty MacDonald's gardens and nature in Washington State.

Tell us the names of this mysterious couple please and you can win a very new Betty MacDonald documentary. 


 


Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Mr. Tigerl is beloved all over the World.

We are so happy that our 'Casanova'  is back.



Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel and Betty MacDonald fan club research team are going to share very interesting info on ' Betty MacDonald and the movie The Egg and I '. 

Another rare episode (from March 21 1952) of the short-lived comedy soap opera, "The Egg and I," based on best selling book by Betty MacDonald which also became a popular film.

The series premiered on September 3, 1951, the same day as "Search for Tomorrow," and ended on August 1, 1952. 

Although it did well in the ratings, it had difficulty attracting a steady sponsor. This episode features Betty Lynn (later known for her work on "The Andy Griffith Show") as Betty MacDonald, John Craven as Bob MacDonald, Doris Rich as Ma Kettle, and Frank Twedell as Pa Kettle.


Betty MacDonald fan club exhibition will be fascinating with the international book editions and letters by Betty MacDonald.

 
I can't wait to see the new Betty MacDonald documentary.

Enjoy a great breakfast at the bookstore with Brad and Nick, please.


Betty MacDonald fan club fan Greta Larson supports Betty MacDonald fan club on Facebook and she does a great job.

Wishing you a great Monday even if you don't like Mondays.

Bella



Don't miss this very special book, please.

 

 

 

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Don't miss this very special book, please.

 

Vita Magica 

Betty MacDonald 

Betty MacDonald fan club

Betty MacDonald forum  

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 -   

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 

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  


Heide Rose and Betty MacDonald   

Betty MacDonald fan club fan Greta Larson



Rita Knobel Ulrich - Islam in Germany - a very interesting ZDF  ( 2nd German Television ) documentary with English subtitles 








All the Terrifying Things That Donald Trump Did This Week

By













 
It begins.Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images
It’s been ten days since Donald Trump won the White House. But for the demagogue’s detractors, it’s felt like centuries — long medieval centuries, chock-full of plague, illiteracy, and barbarians running roughshod through the ruins of the old republic.
But we’re not actually living in the dark ages (yet). So we might as well shed some light on what the barbarians have already wrought.
At Daily Intelligencer, we’ll be taking a weekly inventory of all of Donald Trump’s most jaw-dropping, stomach-churning, spine-tingling affronts to liberal democracy. Here’s a quick rundown of everything the president-elect has already accomplished.
Derided protestors as paid professionals whose acts of free speech are fundamentally “unfair.”


American presidents generally try not to discredit their detractors via patently false right-wing conspiracy theories — a point that someone on Trump’s staff apparently relayed to him, as the president-elect’s Twitter account declared its “love” of the protestors’ “passion” nine hours later.


Invited the manager of his “blind trust” to a meeting with the prime minister of Japan.
Even before his election, Trump had already made a mockery of good government norms, by refusing to extricate himself from the myriad conflicts of interest his company presents. Instead, the president-elect promised to place his assets into what he refers to as a “blind trust,” but is actually an entity that would allow him perfect knowledge of the assets he holds — and that would be managed by his children, who are also members of his transition team.
This week, Trump revealed that those children will also, apparently, take part in diplomatic meetings with the leaders of foreign countries.

Assembled a team of racists to lead his White House.
First, Trump tapped the allegedly anti-Semitic mastermind of an “alt-right” website as his chief White House strategist. Then, the president-elect tapped a retired general who believes that “fear of Muslims is rational” as his national security adviser. Finally, he named a man that a Republican Senate deemed too racist to serve as a federal judge in 1986 — one who thinks the Voting Rights Act is “intrusive,” and (allegedly) told an African-American federal prosecutor that he should “be careful what you say around white folks” — as the head of the Justice Department.
Took credit for the fact that Ford will not be relocating a plant to Mexico (which they never had any intention of relocating to Mexico).

In truth, Ford opted to keep the Lincoln SUV production line in Kentucky, after considering moving it to Mexico — but in either event, the plant would have remained open, and no jobs would have been lost.

But fake news outlets — and some not-so-rigorous “real” ones — celebrated Trump’s “victory,” anyway.
Declared America’s leading newspaper a “failing” institution.
Trump has made a years-long habit of denigrating any media institution that accurately reports information he doesn’t like. But the stakes of this behavior are drastically higher now that he leads the world’s most powerful country.


Abandoned his press pool.
Presidents-elect typically feel compelled to allow a pool of reporters to travel with them to public events, as a gesture to the public’s right to have a watchful eye on its leader. Trump feels no such compulsion.
Floated the idea of hiring his son-in-law to a White House position, in possible defiance of laws against nepotism and norms against conflicts of interest.
Public officials are barred from hiring family members to agencies that they have authority over. They also, generally, avoid hiring the significant others of the heads of their blind trusts.
Took calls from foreign leaders on unsecured phone lines, without consulting the State Department.
Trump spent the 2016 campaign savaging Hillary Clinton for her reckless violation of the State Department’s protocols for transmitting information. He has spent the past week taking calls from foreign leaders — on the unprotected phone lines of Trump Tower — without first soliciting pertinent briefings, in defiance of longstanding practice.

Referred to his White House transition as though it were the next season of The Apprentice.



THE BLOG

History Tells Us What Will Happen Next With Brexit And Trump

 Updated Nov 11, 2016


Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Note: this essay contains a lot of links out, which are underlined. Consider them further reading or me backing up my opinions.

It seems we’re entering another of those stupid seasons humans impose on themselves at fairly regular intervals.

My background is archaeology, so also history and anthropology. It leads me to look at big historical patterns. My theory is that most peoples’ perspective of history is limited to the experience communicated by their parents and grandparents, so 50-100 years. To go beyond that you have to read, study and learn to untangle the propaganda that is inevitable in all telling of history. In a nutshell, at university I would fail a paper if I didn’t compare at least two, if not three opposing views on a topic. Taking one telling of events as gospel doesn’t wash in the comparative analytical method of research that forms the core of British academia. (I can’t speak for other systems, but they’re definitely not all alike in this way.)

So zooming out, we humans have a habit of going into phases of mass destruction, generally self-imposed to some extent or another. This handy list shows all the wars over time. Wars are actually the norm for humans, but every now and then something big comes along. I am interested in the Black Death, which devastated Europe. The opening of Boccaccio’s Decameron describes Florence in the grips of the Plague. It is as beyond imagination as the Somme, Hiroshima or the Holocaust. I mean, you quite literally can’t put yourself there and imagine what it was like. For those in the midst of the Plague, it must have felt like the end of the world.

[Trump is] a charismatic narcissist who feeds on the crowd to become ever stronger, creating a cult around himself.

But a defining feature of humans is their resilience. To us now, it seems obvious that we survived the Plague, but to people at the time it must have seemed incredible that their society continued afterwards. Indeed, many takes on the effects of the Black Death are that it had a positive impact in the long term. Well summed up here:

By targeting frail people of all ages, and killing them by the hundreds of thousands within an extremely short period of time, the Black Death might have represented a strong force of natural selection and removed the weakest individuals on a very broad scale within Europe,” ...In addition, the Black Death significantly changed the social structure of some European regions. Tragic depopulation created the shortage of working people. This shortage caused wages to rise. Products prices fell too. Consequently, standards of living increased. For instance, people started to consume more food of higher quality.

But for the people living through it, as with the World Wars, Soviet Famines, Holocaust, it must have felt inconceivable that humans could rise up from it. The collapse of the Roman Empire, Black Death, Spanish Inquisition, Thirty Years War, War of the Roses, English Civil War... it’s a long list. Events of massive destruction from which humanity recovered and move on, often in better shape.

At a local level in time, people think things are fine — then things rapidly spiral out of control until they become unstoppable, and we wreak massive destruction on ourselves. For the people living in the midst of this, it is hard to see happening and hard to understand. To historians later, it all makes sense and we see clearly how one thing led to another. During the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme I was struck that it was a direct outcome of the assassination of an Austrian Arch Duke in Bosnia. I very much doubt anyone at the time thought the killing of a minor European royal would lead to the death of 17 million people.

My point is that this is a cycle. It happens again and again, but as most people only have a 50-100 year historical perspective they don’t see that it’s happening again. As the events that led to the First World War unfolded, there were a few brilliant minds who started to warn that something big was wrong, that the web of treaties across Europe could lead to a war, but they were dismissed as hysterical, mad, or fools, as is always the way, and as people who worry about Putin, Brexit and Trump are dismissed now.

A little thing leads to an unstoppable destruction that could have been prevented if you’d listened and thought a bit.

Then after the War to end all Wars, we went and had another one. Again, for a historian it was quite predictable. Lead people to feel they have lost control of their country and destiny, people look for scapegoats, a charismatic leader captures the popular mood, and singles out that scapegoat. He talks in rhetoric that has no detail, and drums up anger and hatred. Soon the masses start to move as one, without any logic driving their actions, and the whole becomes unstoppable.

That was Hitler, but it was also Mussolini, Stalin, Putin, Mugabe and so many more. Mugabe is a very good case in point. He whipped up national anger and hatred towards the land owning white minority (who happened to know how to run farms), and seized their land to redistribute to the people, in a great populist move which in the end unravelled the economy and farming industry and left the people in possession of land, but starving. See also the famines created by the Soviet Union, and the one caused by the Chinese Communists last century in which 20-40 million people died. It seems inconceivable that people could create a situation in which tens of millions of people die without reason, but we do it again and again.

But at the time people don’t realize they’re embarking on a route that will lead to a destruction period. They think they’re right, they’re cheered on by jeering angry mobs, their critics are mocked. This cycle, the one we saw for example from the Treaty of Versaille, to the rise of Hitler, to the Second World War, appears to be happening again. But as with before, most people cannot see it because:

1. They are only looking at the present, not the past or future

2. They are only looking immediately around them, not at how events connect globally

3. Most people don’t read, think, challenge or hear opposing views

Trump is doing this in America. Those of us with some oversight from history can see it happening. Read this brilliant, long essay in the New York magazine to understand how Plato described all this, and it is happening just as he predicted. Trump says he will Make America Great Again, when in fact America is currently great, according to pretty well any statistics. He is using passion, anger and rhetoric in the same way all his predecessors did — a charismatic narcissist who feeds on the crowd to become ever stronger, creating a cult around himself. You can blame society, politicians, the media, for America getting to the point that it’s ready for Trump, but the bigger historical picture is that history generally plays out the same way each time someone like him becomes the boss.

On a wider stage, zoom out some more, Russia is a dictatorship with a charismatic leader using fear and passion to establish a cult around himself. Turkey is now there too. Hungary, Poland, Slovakia are heading that way, and across Europe more Trumps and Putins are waiting in the wings, in fact funded by Putin, waiting for the popular tide to turn their way.

We should be asking ourselves what our Archduke Ferdinand moment will be. How will an apparently small event trigger another period of massive destruction. We see Brexit, Trump, Putin in isolation. The world does not work that way  —  all things are connected and affecting each other. I have pro-Brexit friends who say, “Oh, you’re going to blame that on Brexit too??” But they don’t realize that actually, yes, historians will trace neat lines from apparently unrelated events back to major political and social shifts like Brexit.

We are entering a bad phase. It will be unpleasant for those living through it, maybe even will unravel into being hellish and beyond imagination.

Brexit — a group of angry people winning a fight — easily inspires other groups of angry people to start a similar fight, empowered with the idea that they may win. That alone can trigger chain reactions. A nuclear explosion is not caused by one atom splitting, but by the impact of the first atom that splits causing multiple other atoms near it to split, and they in turn causing multiple atoms to split. The exponential increase in atoms splitting, and their combined energy is the bomb. That is how World War One started and, ironically how World War Two ended.
An example of how Brexit could lead to a nuclear war could be this:

Brexit in the UK causes Italy or France to have a similar referendum. Le Pen wins an election in France. Europe now has a fractured EU. The EU, for all its many awful faults, has prevented a war in Europe for longer than ever before. The EU is also a major force in suppressing Putin’s military ambitions. European sanctions on Russia really hit the economy, and helped temper Russia’s attacks on Ukraine (there is a reason bad guys always want a weaker European Union). Trump wins in the US. Trump becomes isolationist, which weakens NATO. He has already said he would not automatically honor NATO commitments in the face of a Russian attack on the Baltics.

With a fractured EU, and weakened NATO, Putin, facing an ongoing economic and social crisis in Russia, needs another foreign distraction around which to rally his people. He funds far right anti-EU activists in Latvia, who then create a reason for an uprising of the Russian Latvians in the East of the country (the EU border with Russia). Russia sends “peace keeping forces” and “aid lorries” into Latvia, as it did in Georgia, and in Ukraine. He cedes Eastern Latvia as he did Eastern Ukraine (Crimea has the same population as Latvia, by the way).

A divided Europe, with the leaders of France, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and others now pro-Russia, anti-EU, and funded by Putin, overrule calls for sanctions or a military response. NATO is slow to respond: Trump does not want America to be involved, and a large part of Europe is indifferent or blocking any action. Russia, seeing no real resistance to their actions, move further into Latvia, and then into Eastern Estonia and Lithuania. The Baltic States declare war on Russia and start to retaliate, as they have now been invaded so have no choice. Half of Europe sides with them, a few countries remain neutral, and a few side with Russia. Where does Turkey stand on this? How does ISIS respond to a new war in Europe? Who uses a nuclear weapon first?

This is just one Arch Duke Ferdinand scenario. The number of possible scenarios are infinite due to the massive complexity of the many moving parts. And of course many of them lead to nothing happening. But based on history we are due another period of destruction, and based on history all the indicators are that we are entering one.

It will come in ways we can’t see coming, and will spin out of control so fast people won’t be able to stop it. Historians will look back and make sense of it all and wonder how we could all have been so naïve. How could I sit in a nice café in London, writing this, without wanting to run away. How could people read it and make sarcastic and dismissive comments about how pro-Remain people should stop whining, and how we shouldn’t blame everything on Brexit. Others will read this and sneer at me for saying America is in great shape, that Trump is a possible future Hitler (and yes, Godwin’s Law. But my comparison is to another narcissistic, charismatic leader fanning flames of hatred until things spiral out of control). It’s easy to jump to conclusions that oppose pessimistic predictions based on the weight of history and learning. Trump won against the other Republicans in debates by countering their claims by calling them names and dismissing them. It’s an easy route but the wrong one.

Ignoring and mocking the experts, as people are doing around Brexit and Trump’s campaign, is no different to ignoring a doctor who tells you to stop smoking, and then finding later you’ve developed incurable cancer. A little thing leads to an unstoppable destruction that could have been prevented if you’d listened and thought a bit. But people smoke, and people die from it. That is the way of the human.

We need to find a way to bridge from our closed groups to other closed groups, try to cross the ever widening social divides.

So I feel it’s all inevitable. I don’t know what it will be, but we are entering a bad phase. It will be unpleasant for those living through it, maybe even will unravel into being hellish and beyond imagination. Humans will come out the other side, recover and move on. The human race will be fine, changed, maybe better. But for those at the sharp end — for the thousands of Turkish teachers who just got fired, for the Turkish journalists and lawyers in prison, for the Russian dissidents in gulags, for people lying wounded in French hospitals after terrorist attacks, for those yet to fall, this will be their Somme.

What can we do? Well, again, looking back, probably not much. The liberal intellectuals are always in the minority. See Clay Shirky’s Twitter Storm on this point. The people who see that open societies, being nice to other people, not being racist, not fighting wars, is a better way to live, they generally end up losing these fights. They don’t fight dirty. They are terrible at appealing to the populace. They are less violent, so end up in prisons, camps, and graves. We need to beware not to become divided (see: Labour party), we need to avoid getting lost in arguing through facts and logic, and counter the populist messages of passion and anger with our own similar messages. We need to understand and use social media.

We need to harness a different fear. Fear of another World War nearly stopped World War 2, but didn’t. We need to avoid our own echo chambers. Trump and Putin supporters don’t read the Guardian, so writing there is just reassuring our friends. We need to find a way to bridge from our closed groups to other closed groups, try to cross the ever widening social divides.

(Perhaps I’m just writing this so I can be remembered by history as one of the people who saw it coming.)


____________________

A version of this post originally appeared on Medium.

I have replied to some of the comments on this essay here.






Reminder: Your future Vice President claims cigarettes don't cause cancer
Throughout his political career, Indiana governor and GOP Vice Presidential Nominee Mike Pence has received more than $100,000 donations from he…
deadstate.org
 
 
Pseudoscience

Mike Pence will look you straight in the face and tell you cigarettes ‘don’t kill’


Throughout his political career, Indiana governor and GOP Vice President-Elect Mike Pence has received more than $100,000 in donations from the tobacco industry. In return, he disseminated the false claim that cigarette smoke isn’t as dangerous as people think.  “Time for a quick reality check,” Pence wrote in an from 2001. “Despite the hysteria from the political class and the media, smoking doesn’t kill.” In the op-ed, Pence admitted that smoking isn’t exactly “good for you,” but claimed that two-thirds of smokers do not die from smoking related illness and “9 out of ten smokers do not contract lung cancer.” Pence framed the perceived dangers of smoking as just another propaganda ploy from the government to encroach on the rights of citizens to live how they pleased.


In a political debate when Pence was running for an open U.S. House seat, he was pressed hard by his Democratic opponent on his past comments. According to the Indianapolis Star, “Pence clarified that he wrote that there was no causal link medically identifying smoking as causing lung cancer.”
According to ThinkProgress, Pence was one of 97 people in the U.S. House of Representatives who voted against the bipartisan Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, “which gave the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate cigarettes and blasted a 2009 bill to expand healthcare for kids as ‘a tax increase on smokers to pay for a new middle-class entitlement.’”

Three years later, Pence ran for governor, again with significant tobacco industry support. Altria/Phillip Morris, Lorillard, and R.J. Reynolds/Reynolds American have combined to contribute at least $63,500 to his 2012 and 2016 campaigns, according to data from the National Institute on Money in State Politics.
Pence’s own state has paid a high price for its governor’s contribution to the spread of cigarette trutherism. Indiana has the highest smoking rate in the industrial Midwest region and is seventh when it comes to the most smokers in the U.S. As the state with the lowest tobacco taxes in the nation, the public health hazard doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon.

…a 2014 article noted that 17 percent of pregnant women smoke — nearly double the national average — and this has been linked to lower birth weights and higher rates of infant mortality. As a result, it noted, “the state spends $28 million a year on health costs for infants born to mothers who smoke.”
Compounding the problem, Pence rejected an effort to fund transportation by raising the cigarette tax in his state by 5 cents.
“I’m very confident that we can meet the needs that Indiana has over the next four years to improve our roads and bridges without raising taxes,” he said.
Smoke up, Indiana.
[This post has been updated]
Featured image: Gage Skidmore (Flickr)


High in Tower, Trump Reads, Tweets and Plans


 
President-elect Donald J. Trump, speaking in Raleigh, N.C., the day before the election. “The presidency may change him eventually, but it’s not going to change him initially,” a Republican strategist said. Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times
Donald J. Trump sits high in Trump Tower in New York, spending hours on the phone with friends, television personalities and donors to ask if they know people to recommend for his cabinet.
He joins a daily morning transition meeting with his family and staff, but still maintains the routine that sustained him during the campaign: starting his day at 5 a.m. reading The New York Post and The New York Times, then switching on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” whose co-host Joe Scarborough he once publicly savaged but now often seeks out for advice.
He gets angry when members of his inner circle get too much of the spotlight, as Rudolph W. Giuliani did when headlines about his millions of dollars in speaking fees appeared as the former New York mayor was publicly promoting himself to be Mr. Trump’s secretary of state.
And Mr. Trump has happily resumed control of his Twitter feed, using it to bash targets in the news media and criticize the cast of the Broadway musical “Hamilton” for imploring Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who was in the audience Friday night, to govern on behalf of all Americans.

As a parade of job seekers, TV talking heads and statesmen like Henry Kissinger paraded through the lobby of Trump Tower this past week, Mr. Trump ran his presidential transition from his triplex on the 58th floor much the way he ran his campaign and his business before that — schmoozing, rewarding loyalty, fomenting infighting among advisers and moving confidently forward through a series of fits and starts.

President Obama, who met with Mr. Trump two days after the election, has held out hope that the gravity of the presidency will change the former reality show star. But people close to the 70-year-old president-elect say that he has such long-held habits formed by fame, wealth and the freedom to have done whatever he wanted that they remain skeptical, at least for now, that he will transform to fit the constraints of the White House.

 
Thus far, President-elect Donald J. Trump has been most comfortable preparing for office from Trump Tower in New York. Credit Sam Hodgson for The New York Times
“The presidency may change him eventually, but it’s not going to change him initially,” said Barry Bennett, a former senior adviser to the Trump campaign and a Republican strategist. “He’s a man who likes a lot of input from a lot of people, and he’s someone who has an incredible instinct for the American people.”


People close to Mr. Trump nonetheless say he is more focused now than he was in the first few days after his surprise victory. He was nervous and jolted, they said, by the 90-minute Oval Office meeting with Mr. Obama, and for the first time appeared to take in the enormousness of the job.
He is proud, they say, that he has so rapidly named people for his cabinet and senior staff, including a group of hawks and hard-line loyalists: Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama as attorney general, Michael T. Flynn as national security adviser, Representative Mike Pompeo of Kansas as director of the C.I.A., and Stephen K. Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News, as chief strategist.
“Ahead of schedule, under budget, high energy, trust and loyalty — there’s just a pattern to the whole thing,” said Richard F. Hohlt, a longtime Republican consultant in Washington. “That’s his mark of success.”
Loyalty, however, goes only so far.
There were initial reports from senior officials within Mr. Trump’s orbit that Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s most fervent supporter in the campaign’s final weeks, was the leading candidate for secretary of state. But the headlines about Mr. Giuliani’s business interests bothered Mr. Trump, who was urged by several business leaders and some media hosts to reconsider the option. Suddenly, he arranged a Saturday meeting with one of his fiercest critics, Mitt Romney, at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J.
Transition officials say the meeting with Mr. Romney, a moderate Republican who was the party’s nominee for president in 2012, may not have been simply for show. They say that Mr. Trump believes that Mr. Romney, with his patrician bearing, looks the part of a top diplomat right out of “central casting” — the same phrase Mr. Trump used to describe Mike Pence before choosing him as his running mate.
Yet Mr. Trump loves the tension and drama of a selection process, and has sought to stoke it. A senior adviser described the meeting, in part, as Mr. Romney simply coming to pay his respects to the president-elect and “kiss his ring.”


Mr. Trump, who has been known to act precipitously against people who have not pleased him, did so again this past week when he removed Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, another longtime loyalist, as the head of his transition. People close to Mr. Trump say that, among other concerns, he determined that Mr. Christie had to go after two former top aides were convicted by a federal jury on all charges stemming from a 2013 scheme to close access lanes at the George Washington Bridge to punish a New Jersey mayor who declined to endorse Mr. Christie for re-election. And Mr. Trump was angered when Mr. Christie did not defend him after 11-year-old audio emerged of the candidate boasting about committing sexual assaults.

Mr. Trump also likes to surprise, and enjoys the worldwide speculation he sets off with his Twitter posts. And after he became upset by Mr. Giuliani’s headlines, his aides leaked the news that he was considering Gov. Nikki R. Haley of South Carolina for secretary of state — speculation that has since faded as Mr. Romney’s prospects have risen.
Showmanship remains central to Mr. Trump, who on Thursday held his first meeting as president-elect with a foreign leader, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan. The setting was Mr. Trump’s marble and gold, Louis XIV-style residence on the 58th floor, with sweeping views of New York and Central Park. Mr. Trump, with General Flynn at his side, sat next to Mr. Abe under an enormous crystal chandelier as Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka, looked on.
The formality of the setting contrasted with the freewheeling style that Mr. Trump adopts in his cluttered corner office on the 26th floor, where aides, his children and his longtime assistant, Rhona Graff, move busily in and out as he holds court behind his desk. Mr. Trump, who does not use a computer or read online, does keep an eye on the television, particularly the now-constant news about himself. Most information he takes in is in person or on the phone.
He is worried, his aides say, that he will not be able to keep his Android phone once he gets to the White House and wonders aloud how isolated he will become — and whether he will be able to keep in touch with his friends — without it as president. He continues to discuss with the Secret Service how much he can return on weekends to Trump Tower, and still expects to use the Bedminister golf club and his private Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., as vacation retreats.
The Trump International Hotel in Washington, just five blocks from the White House, could also take on an outsize role in the Trump administration. His children may stay there when they come to the nation’s capital, and there is chatter that it may supplant Blair House, which traditionally hosts foreign dignitaries visiting the president.
But for now, Mr. Trump seems most comfortable running the show from Trump Tower.
“I’ve witnessed him as a businessman sitting at the desk; I’ve witnessed him as a potential candidate sitting at the desk; I’ve witnessed him as a candidate sitting at the desk; and I’ve now witnessed him as the president-elect sitting at the desk,” said Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser.
“It’s a comfortable environment,” she added, “but now the stakes are higher.”

Eric Lipton and Michael S. Schmidt contributed reporting.


Hillary Clinton’s Popular-Vote Victory Is Unprecedented—and Still Growing

Her margin is now bigger than the winning margins for John Kennedy and Richard Nixon. 

Hillary Clinton now leads the national popular vote for president by roughly one million votes, and her victory margin is expanding rapidly. That margin could easily double before the end of an arduous process of counting ballots, reviewing results, and reconciling numbers for an official total.
But one thing is certain: Clinton’s win is unprecedented in the modern history of American presidential politics. And the numbers should focus attention on the democratic dysfunction that has been exposed.
When a candidate who wins the popular vote does not take office, when a loser is instead installed in the White House, that is an issue. And it raises questions that must be addressed.
So let’s address them:
WHO WON THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE? AND BY HOW MUCH?
Clinton is winning it. The only question now has to do with the size of the win. You will see different numbers in different counts because keeping on top of the national totals requires constant monitoring of the results from 50 states and the District of Columbia. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report maintains one of the most frequently updated spreadsheets on the race. One week after the election, it had Clinton with 62,403,269 votes to 61,242,652 for Trump. That puts Clinton ahead by 1.16 million votes. Another able chronicler of the count, Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, also puts Clinton ahead by more than one million votes.
The million-vote figure is a baseline from which to analyze Clinton’s popular-vote victory. But it is only that—a baseline—as her margin will continue to expand.
HOW COME NO ONE IS GOING OVER 50 PERCENT?
The previous three US presidential elections saw the winning candidates win actual majorities of the popular vote. But that won’t happen this time. As in 18 previous presidential elections, the winner of the popular vote in this year’s election will achieve only a plurality of the votes.
More than a million votes have already been counted for Libertarian Gary Johnson, Green Jill Stein, independent Evan McMullin and others, according to various counts. The totals for third-party, independent, and write-in candidates will rise as the tabulation continues—providing a powerful indication of the desire for a broader democracy and political alternatives. The high level of support for third-party and independent candidates also guarantees that neither major-party candidate will do this year what Barack Obama did in 2008 and 2012: win a majority of the popular vote.
WHY AREN’T ALL THE VOTES COUNTED A WEEK AFTER THE ELECTION?
The United States has no clear and consistent national standard for holding elections or for counting votes. The rules differ radically from state to state. In some states, election officials are already engaged on the process of establishing a final official count. In other states, ballots are still being counted. The big distinction is between states that do most of their voting on Election Day and states that rely heavily on “absentee” ballots and mail voting. It happens that many of the bigger states that make it easier to vote (at the polls and by mail) are states that favored Clinton.
The biggest of these is California, where Clinton is ahead 62-33 percent at this point. California election officials explain: “It typically takes weeks for counties to process and count all of the ballots. Elections officials have approximately one month (28 days for presidential electors and 30 days for all other contests) to complete their extensive tallying, auditing, and certification work (known as the ‘official canvass’) Most notably, voting by mail has increased significantly in recent years and many vote-by-mail ballots arrive on, or up to three days after, Election Day (vote-by-mail ballots postmarked on or before Election Day and received by the county elections official no later than three days after the election are included in the canvass). In processing vote-by-mail ballots, elections officials must confirm each voter’s registration status, verify each voter’s signature on the vote-by-mail envelope, and ensure each person did not vote elsewhere in the same election before the ballot can be counted. Other ballots that are processed after Election Day include provisional ballots (processed similar to vote-by-mail ballots), and ballots that are damaged or cannot be machine-read and must be remade by elections officials.”
As on November 11, according to the state’s updated “Estimated Unprocessed Ballots” report, more than one million ballots were as yet uncounted in Los Angeles County. Two days later, San Diego County reported that it has more than 600,000 ballots to count.
BUT THE HEADLINES JUST TALK ABOUT DONALD TRUMP WINNING?
Elite media outlets do not, for the most part, have an interest in vote counts and what they mean. Coverage of the 2016 election campaign confirmed the extent to which major media are more interested in personalities than facts on the ground. The television networks like to declare a “winner” and then get focused on the palace intrigues surrounding a transition of power. Those intrigues are worth covering. But perspective on the will of the people get lost. Election-night numbers get locked in, and that’s that. There may be a notation that Clinton won “a narrow popular-vote” margin, but rarely is there a deep dive—even as the “narrow” margin grows to something much more substantial.
It was announced on election night that the Republican nominee had secured a sufficient number of Electoral College votes to claim the presidency. With the counts continuing, and with recounts a possibility, the Electoral College totals as of one week after the election project that Trump will win 306 electoral votes, as opposed to 232 for Clinton. The Trump figure is 36 more than is needed to reach the 270 total that is required to claim the presidency. Trump will almost certainly stay above the 270 threshold, although he could still lose a state (such as Michigan, where he leads by less than 13,000 votes) or win one (such as New Hampshire, where Clinton is up by around 3,000 votes). The results in a number of battleground states were so close that a shift of around 55,000 votes in three states (Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) would align the national popular vote result with the Electoral College result for a Clinton win.
What is important here is to recognize that there was no Trump mandate, in the popular vote (which he lost by a significant margin) or in the Electoral College (which he won narrowly, thanks to close results that tipped a handful of states in his favor). Notably, Trump’s total fell below 50 percent in the majority of states; he lost 20 states and the District of Columbia, and in at least seven additional states he leads, but without a majority of the vote.
IS CLINTON’S POPULAR-VOTE VICTORY UNPRECEDENTED?
Yes. Clinton has already won the popular vote by a dramatically larger number of ballots than anyone in history who did not go on to be inaugurated as president.
There have been cases in the past where popular-vote winners have not become president. Three of them occurred in the 19th century, before the majority of Americans were allowed to vote. Before this year, there was only one instance in the modern era when a popular-vote winner was denied the presidency by the Electoral College. That was in 2000, when Democrat Al Gore beat Republican George W. Bush by 543,816 votes nationally.
Clinton’s popular-vote margin over that of Trump is now greater than that of Richard Nixon over Hubert Humphrey in 1968, and that of John Kennedy over Nixon in 1960.
Clinton is now winning roughly 47.8 percent of the vote, according to David Wasserman’s count for the Cook report. That’s a little less than the level reached by Gore in 2000. As Clinton’s popular-vote margin increases, so, too, will her percentage. It is possible that she will win the popular vote with the highest percentage of anyone who has not taken office.
But the percentage that matters is Trump’s. The Republican nominee will become president with less popular support than a number of major-party candidates who lost races for the presidency. Trump is now at 47.0 percent of the popular vote, according to the Cook count. That is a lower percentage than were won by Mitt Romney in 2012,  John Kerry in 2004, Gore in 2000, or Gerald Ford in 1976.
IS THIS ABOUT HILLARY CLINTON AND DONALD TRUMP?
No. Supporters of Clinton and critics of Clinton can kvetch about the virtues of her candidacy, and about what remains of the Democratic Party, for as long as their voices hold out. And Trump supporters can certainly announce that “the rules are the rules.” But this is about a higher principle than partisanship, and about something that matters more than personalities. This is about democracy itself. When the winner of an election does not take office, and when the loser does, we have evidence of a system that is structurally rigged. Those who favor a rigged system can defend it—and make empty arguments about small states versus big states that neglect the fact that many of the country’s smallest states (Delaware, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont) backed the popular-vote winner. But those who favor democracy ought to join their voices in support of reform.
There are national movements to address the mess that is made when the Electoral College trumps democracy. There are petitions that call for abolishing the Electoral College. California Senator Barbara Boxer this week proposed a constitutional amendment to do just that, saying: “This is the only office in the land where you can get more votes and still lose the presidency. The Electoral College is an outdated, undemocratic system that does not reflect our modern society, and it needs to change immediately.”
There is also the bipartisan National Popular Vote initiative. Promoted by the reform group FairVote, it commits states to respect the national popular vote (as part of a multi-state compact in which states with a majority of electoral votes commit to assign them to the candidate who gets the most votes) and to ending the absurdity of elections in which losers can become presidents.
IF SOMEONE TELLS ME I SHOULD “GET OVER IT,” HOW SHOULD I RESPOND?
Just tell them that you agree with Donald Trump, who in 2012 described the Electoral College a “disaster for democracy.” On Sunday, he told CBS’s 60 Minutes that he still agrees with himself—even if he is not prepared to defer to the will of the people in this instance. “I would rather see it where you went with simple votes,” Trump explained. “You know, you get 100 million votes and somebody else gets 90 million votes and you win.”








The Trumps Are Already Monetizing the Presidency

By


Public-private partnership.Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
On Sunday night, Ivanka Trump appeared on 60 Minutes. She was invited on to 60 Minutes because her father is now the president-elect, and she a member of his transition team. Shortly after the program aired, her jewelry company sent the following missive to an email list of fashion journalists.



As far as attempts to cash in on proximity to power go, this is pretty mundane stuff. But it served as a potent reminder that the Trump family is both willing and able to monetize the presidency in ways both unpredictable and unprecedented.

Donald Trump owns a business that has elaborate ties to government agencies, both foreign and domestic. In one of the many heavy-handed symbols the past year of American politics has produced, the president-elect just opened a new hotel blocks from the White House — which operates out of the historic Old Post Office building, which the federal government still owns.

Trump will now get to appoint the head of the bureau that manages that building, a bureau that has tens of millions of dollars in contracts with his company.
This presents a formidable challenge to a man who won the presidency while campaigning against corruption and the “politics of personal profit.” It’s impossible for Trump to insulate himself against all accusations of self-dealing. After all, as a billionaire business owner, he stands to directly benefit from an array of garden-variety Republican policies — tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, abolition of the estate tax, and a Labor Department more concerned with appeasing management than unions, to name just a few.
But Trump has shown no concern whatsoever for maintaining any appearance of propriety. He has decided to shield himself from conflicts of interest by putting his assets into what he refers to as a “blind trust,” but is actually an entity that would allow him perfect knowledge of the assets he holds — and that would be managed by his children, who are also informal advisers to his government, and who may be on the cusp of receiving top-secret security clearances at his request.
Which is to say: an entity that is the opposite of a blind trust.
On Sunday, likely future secretary of State Rudy Giuliani (breathe in, breathe out) offered two radically different defenses of this arrangement.
“You have to have some confidence in the integrity of the president,” Giuliani told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “The man is an enormously wealthy man. I don’t think there’s any real fear or suspicion that he’s seeking to enrich himself by being president. If he wanted to enrich himself, he wouldn’t have run for president.”
Tapper then suggested that when the president-elect explains he will be insulated from conflicts by a blind trust — and then sets up an entity that is the opposite of a blind trust — that might raise real fears and suspicions.

“You realize that those laws don’t apply to the president, right?” Giuliani replied. “The president doesn’t have to have a blind trust. For some reason when the law was written, the president was exempt. I think he’s in a very unusual situation.”
So, per Giuliani, we shouldn’t worry about Trump using the presidency to enrich himself because:
1. We should trust in his integrity (because, implicitly, nothing about his presidential campaign suggested an interest in using public power to promote private interests).
2. Even if he did try to enrich himself, it would be totally legal, because, “for some reason,” the president is exempt from conflict-of-interest laws.
One of these reassurances is false. The other is true, but, also, the opposite of reassuring.
As already mentioned, Trump will have abundant opportunity to enrich himself through policy: Last July, the National Labor Relations Board ruled against the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, which was challenging its employees’ effort to form a union. In November, the NLRB ruled against Trump’s hotel again, for refusing to begin negotiations with that union. Trump will now have the opportunity to appoint all five members of the NLRB.
He will also get to appoint the head of the Internal Revenue Service, which is currently auditing Trump’s taxes.
Trump can also profit off the presidency more directly — throughout his campaign, the GOP nominee collected money from the Secret Service every time its agents took a ride on one of his jets. While he will ride on Air Force One as president, his children, who will be provided Secret Service detail, will likely, often, travel aboard private planes, thereby directing more taxpayer money into TAG Air Inc., Trump’s aviation company. TAG Air collected $6 million during the campaign.
The limits to Trump’s kleptocratic behavior are primarily political. However, the New York Times notes there is one legal restriction that Trump may have to wrestle with:
Perhaps most troubling for Mr. Trump, several ethics lawyers said, is a relatively obscure provision of the Constitution, called the Emoluments Clause, which prohibits any government official from taking payments or gifts from a foreign government, or even from sharing in profits in a company that has financial ties to a foreign government.

Mr. Trump has had business deals with foreign governments or individuals with apparent ties to foreign governments, including multimillion-dollar real estate arrangements in Azerbaijan and Uruguay. His children have frequently traveled abroad to promote the Trump brand, making trips to Canada, the United Arab Emirates and Scotland. Closer to home, the Bank of China is a tenant in Trump Tower and is a lender for another building in Midtown Manhattan where Mr. Trump has a significant partnership interest.

“Doing business with a foreign corporation, be it in Azerbaijan, Turkey or Russia, if is it owned in part or controlled by a foreign government — any benefit that would accrue to Mr. Trump could well be a violation of the Emoluments Clause of the United States Constitution,” said Kenneth A. Gross, a political ethics and compliance lawyer in Washington.
Regardless, it will be up to the Democratic Party to make Trump pay a political price for his self-dealing.
The possibility that Hillary Clinton had leveraged her family’s political power to extract charitable donations from foreign governments — and speaking fees from Wall Street banks — was viewed as so contemptible, the Democratic nominee routinely trailed her opponent on the question of who was more likely to combat corruption in D.C.
Trump and his family are all but certain to pursue schemes far more blatantly kleptocratic than the Clintons ever dreamed of. Democrats must see this fact as a (politically) lucrative opportunity — and milk it for all it’s worth.
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Video

Full Speech: Trump Addresses Supporters

After winning the presidency, Donald J. Trump addressed supporters in New York City.
By THE NEW YORK TIMES on Publish Date November 9, 2016. Photo by Eric Thayer for The New York Times. Watch in Times Video »
Following is a transcript of Donald J. Trump’s victory speech, as compiled by Federal News Services.
TRUMP: Thank you. Thank you very much, everyone.
(APPLAUSE)
Sorry to keep you waiting; complicated business; complicated.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you very much.
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: I’ve just received a call from Secretary Clinton.
(APPLAUSE)
She congratulated us — it’s about us — on our victory, and I congratulated her and her family on a very, very hard-fought campaign. I mean, she — she fought very hard.
(APPLAUSE)
Hillary has worked very long and very hard over a long period of time, and we owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country.
(APPLAUSE)
I mean that very sincerely.
(APPLAUSE)
Now it’s time for America to bind the wounds of division; have to get together. To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people.
(APPLAUSE)
It’s time. I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans, and this is so important to me.
(APPLAUSE)
For those who have chosen not to support me in the past, of which there were a few people. . .
(LAUGHTER)
. . . I’m reaching out to you for your guidance and your help so that we can work together and unify our great country.
(APPLAUSE)
As I’ve said from the beginning, ours was not a campaign, but rather an incredible and great movement made up of millions of hard-working men and women who love their country and want a better, brighter future for themselves and for their families.
(APPLAUSE)
It’s a movement comprised of Americans from all races, religions, backgrounds and beliefs who want and expect our government to serve the people, and serve the people it will.
(APPLAUSE)
Working together, we will begin the urgent task of rebuilding our nation and renewing the American dream. I’ve spent my entire life and business looking at the untapped potential in projects and in people all over the world. That is now what I want to do for our country.
(APPLAUSE)
Tremendous potential. I’ve gotten to know our country so well — tremendous potential. It’s going to be a beautiful thing. Every single American will have the opportunity to realize his or her fullest potential. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.
(APPLAUSE)
We are going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals. We’re going to rebuild our infrastructure, which will become, by the way, second to none. And we will put millions of our people to work as we rebuild it.
We will also finally take care of our great veterans.
(APPLAUSE)
They’ve been so loyal, and I’ve gotten to know so many over this 18-month journey. The time I’ve spent with them during this campaign has been among my greatest honors. Our veterans are incredible people. We will embark upon a project of national growth and renewal. I will harness the creative talents of our people and we will call upon the best and brightest to leverage their tremendous talent for the benefit of all. It’s going to happen.
(APPLAUSE)
We have a great economic plan. We will double our growth and have the strongest economy anywhere in the world. At the same time, we will get along with all other nations willing to get along with us. We will be.
(APPLAUSE)
We’ll have great relationships. We expect to have great, great relationships. No dream is too big, no challenge is too great.
TRUMP: Nothing we want for our future is beyond our reach.
America will no longer settle for anything less than the best.
(APPLAUSE)
We must reclaim our country’s destiny and dream big and bold and daring. We have to do that. We’re going to dream of things for our country and beautiful things and successful things once again.
I want to tell the world community that while we will always put America’s interests first, we will deal fairly with everyone, with everyone — all people and all other nations. We will seek common ground, not hostility; partnership, not conflict.
And now I’d like to take this moment to thank some of the people who really helped me with this, what they are calling tonight, very, very historic victory.
First, I want to thank my parents, who I know are looking down on me right now.
(APPLAUSE)
Great people. I’ve learned so much from them. They were wonderful in every regard. I had truly great parents.
I also want to thank my sisters, Maryanne and Elizabeth, who are here with us tonight. And, where are they? They’re here someplace. They’re very shy, actually. And my brother Robert — my great friend. Where is Robert? Where is Robert?
(APPLAUSE)
My brother Robert. And they should all be on this stage, but that’s OK. They’re great. And also my late brother, Fred. Great guy. Fantastic guy.
(APPLAUSE)
Fantastic family. I was very lucky. Great brothers, sisters; great, unbelievable parents.
To Melania and Don. . .
(APPLAUSE) . . . and Ivanka. . .
(APPLAUSE)
. . . and Eric and Tiffany and Baron, I love you and I thank you, and especially for putting up with all of those hours. This was tough.
(APPLAUSE)
This was tough. This political stuff is nasty and it’s tough. So I want to thank my family very much. Really fantastic. Thank you all. Thank you all.
And Lara, unbelievable job, unbelievable.
Vanessa, thank you. Thank you very much.
What a great group. You’ve all given me such incredible support, and I will tell you that we have a large group of people. You know, they kept saying we have a small staff. Not so small. Look at all the people that we have. Look at all of these people.
And Kellyanne and Chris and Rudy and Steve and David. We have got — we have got tremendously talented people up here. And I want to tell you, it’s been — it’s been very, very special. I want to give a very special thanks to our former mayor, Rudy Giuliani.
(APPLAUSE)
Unbelievable. Unbelievable. He traveled with us and he went through meetings. That Rudy never changes. Where’s Rudy? Where is he? Rudy.
Governor Chris Christie, folks, was unbelievable.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you, Chris.
The first man, first senator, first major, major politician, and let me tell you, he is highly respected in Washington because he’s as smart as you get: Senator Jeff Sessions. Where is Jeff?
(APPLAUSE)
Great man.
Another great man, very tough competitor. He was not easy. He was not easy. Who is that? Is that the mayor that showed up?
(LAUGHTER)
Is that Rudy? Oh, Rudy got up here.
Another great man who has been really a friend to me. But I’ll tell you, I got to know him as a competitor because he was one of the folks that was negotiating to go against those Democrats: Dr. Ben Carson. Where is Ben?
(APPLAUSE)
Where is Ben?
TRUMP: And by the way, Mike Huckabee is here someplace, and he is fantastic. Mike and his family, Sarah — thank you very much.
General Mike Flynn. Where is Mike?
(APPLAUSE)
And General Kellogg. We have over 200 generals and admirals that have endorsed our campaign. And they’re special people and it’s really an honor. We have 22 congressional Medal of Honor recipients. We have just tremendous people.
A very special person who believed me and, you know, I’d read reports that I wasn’t getting along with him. I never had a bad second with him. He’s an unbelievable star. He is. . .
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: That’s right. How did you possibly guess? So let me tell you about Reince, and I’ve said this. I said, Reince — and I know it, I know. Look at all those people over there. I know it. Reince is a superstar. But I said, “They can’t call you a superstar, Reince, unless we win,” because you can’t be called a superstar — like Secretariat — if Secretariat came in second, Secretariat would not have that big, beautiful bronze bust at the track at Belmont.
But I’ll tell you, Reince is really a star. And he is the hardest-working guy. And in a certain way, I did this — Reince, come up here. Where is Reince? Get over here, Reince.
(APPLAUSE)
Boy oh boy oh boy. It’s about time you did this, Reince. My God.
(APPLAUSE)
Say a few words. No, come on, say something.
RNC CHAIRMAN REINCE PRIEBUS: Ladies and gentlemen, the next president of the United States, Donald Trump.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you. It’s been an honor. God bless. Thank God.
TRUMP: Amazing guy.
Our partnership with the RNC was so important to the success and what we’ve done.
So I also have to say I’ve gotten to know some incredible people — the Secret Service people.
(APPLAUSE)
They’re tough and they’re smart and they’re sharp, and I don’t want to mess around with them, I can tell you. And when I want to go and wave to a big group of people and they rip me down and put me back down on the seat. But they are fantastic people, so I want to thank the Secret Service.
(APPLAUSE)
And law enforcement in New York City. They’re here tonight.
(APPLAUSE)
These are spectacular people, sometimes underappreciated unfortunately, but we appreciate them. We know what they go through.
So, it’s been what they call a historic event, but to be really historic, we have to do a great job. And I promise you that I will not let you down. We will do a great job. We will do a great job.
(APPLAUSE)
I look very much forward to being your president, and hopefully at the end of two years or three years or four years, or maybe even eight years. . .
(APPLAUSE)
. . . you will say, so many of you worked so hard for us, but you will say that — you will say that that was something that you really were very proud to do and I can. . .
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Thank you very much.
And I can only say that while the campaign is over, our work on this movement is now really just beginning.
(APPLAUSE)
We’re going to get to work immediately for the American people. And we’re going to be doing a job that hopefully you will be so proud of your president. You’ll be so proud. Again, it’s my honor. It was an amazing evening. It’s been an amazing two-year period. And I love this country.
(APPLAUSE) Thank you. Thank you very much.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you to Mike Pence. Thank you.
(APPLAUSE)

Rosen... / Schleedorf



                                Mr. Tigerli's memories




Copyright 2015/2016 by Letizia Mancino




Translated by Mary Holmes




All rights reseverd 



My birthday! 



I, Mr. Tigerli, can hardly save myself from being submerged in red roses!  Oh dear, a loving cat has his problems.


Surrounded by a sea of flowers!


Mind you I’ve earned it. I have risked so much for love in my life!
I have become famous because of being such a great lover.  I am a Casanova cat.



Am I exaggerating?  Are there not cats more famous than me, artists who paint or play the piano?
That may be so, but they are “nobodies” in the art of loving!

Look in the internet under “Erotica Felina”! You will see that my name immediately appears on the screen.


People boarding their plane in Singapore have found me at once on Google.


I am a world famous cat.


Oh no, I don’t loose my head over female cats. But women! I love women.  Yes only women. These wonderful creatures give me everything! Not only affection, good conversation and food.


I was four months old when I discovered my partiality for women.


One time I was cavorting on the bed with Roswitha, my first love – although it was strictly forbidden to get onto the bed – when under the woolen blanket I suddenly felt a wonderful soft plump area! Roswitha’s tummy! I was running backwards and forwards across it when suddenly a shot of adrenalin rushed through my cat brain. At an early age I became a slave to love!


But it was Roswitha’s foot that surprised me with my first erotic feelings. She had unknowingly stretched it out of the bed under the pressure of my four paws and for the first time I saw the naked foot of a woman. Five small tempting little sausages attracted my attention. How delicately the points moved. They were more attractive to look at than the mice in the fresh grass. I miaowed to them “I’m going to bite you”!
I understand men who kiss the feet of women so ardently. 
immediately lost my head and my innocence.

Now I began to nibble at these five little porkies.


Roswitha continued to sleep and sighed softly. Encouraged I licked her whole foot. Roswitha laughed sweetly and delightfully in her sleep.


Within eight months I was familiar with her leg.


I love beautiful legs. Without hair, without ticks or other insects. They have such a wonderful perfume. I could lick women’s legs without any saliva. Wonderful!   A refined lover begins with delicate movements, not by taking the female creation by storm. Only goats climb on the back of their females without paying a single compliment. You know, Betty, that a Casanova doesn’t come straight to the point!


Roswitha, I love you Oh, my first love! I felt so good in your bed. I lay at your feet in the night. But after two intimate years deeply in love with your feet, your husband came home. His field service away from home was over, and sadly my home service with you too.
“Get out of my bed”, he shouted. It’s not right to treat a loving cat so rudely, even when men have the right to be jealous of us. We are after all superior to them. We are supple and seductively beautiful until old age. We are not rude or, even worse, drunkards! A woman can spend romantic hours stroking us or even sleep with us in her bed and still believe in platonic love, which is hardly possible for them with a man. Women never become pregnant with us and this has advantages. Casanova was the inventor of the condom. We are the condom.

I was thrown out. Are men all so brutal, Betty? The bedroom door was locked. But I was still allowed to live in the house: three sofas in the living room, a bed in the guest bedroom, and an old divan in the cellar were available for me. Roswitha could come to these. But I was appalled!


Mr. Brummi avoided my dirty looks. Since then I have not befriended men, to say nothing of cats!


Without Roswitha’s feet I had to eke out a miserable existence in the house. And she complained that her feet were cold.
The husband however was obdurate. He tried, without success, to take my place: to stroke Roswitha’s feet, to rub them, to tickle them! But Roswitha’s five little white toes remained in the bed as motionless as if rigor mortis had set in.


There were no more giggles. The doctor recommended an evening foot-bath. To think that I should be replaced by a herbal bath! How outrageous!


Should I have scratched at the bedroom door every night? I am a proud cat! I would rather look around! She wouldn’t have heard me anyway. The husband snores as loudly as a vacuum cleaner on the point of collapse. Should I have dropped five dead mice in front of the door? But I don’t bring her these presents any more. If you love me, I thought, get divorced!
“Darling” I hear her say to her husband, “Couldn’t you snore more quietly?”


I comforted myself with her socks. The dirty ones, naturally. There were a few flakes from her skin that I swallowed with joy. Some men even sniff underwear. Idiotic love. That’s going too far for me. I, Mr Tigerli, don’t do that because I am an aesthetic cat. Gradually I’d had enough of the socks. Should I look for a new woman? The thought of being unfaithful came to me quite suddenly.


The nights in my basket passed peacefully  - and also the nights in Roswitha’s bed. Cold feet and migraines are two passion killers. The husband was sullen. She never suffered with me. I laughed - even if cats can’t laugh – behind my beard and knew that she had remained faithful.  I didn’t. I found the young servant in the house very fascinating. Her legs were not so beautiful as Roswitha’s , but the risks were low. The young woman was a Russian, temperamental, pretty and I liked her. Infidelity was for me a triviality.


“Oh, Mr. Tigerli”, cried Putziputzi  (that was her pet name. I’ll say no more, she had two brothers) “why are you licking me so tenderly?”
I could have answered. “You are my second choice. I am missing Roswitha’s feet.” But I wrapped myself round her leg, as all loving cats do.


She gave an even louder cry and ran away! I was perplexed!


I had no idea that genuine love-play begins with “No, no, I’d rather not, please don’t”.
I still had a lot to learn. Then I thought: Quick , Tigerli, follow Putziputzi and sing her a song! After that wonderful days followed: I showered her soft thighs with delicate little love-bites. It was intoxicating!


We constantly changed the spot we chose for our love-making. On Mondays and Fridays we lay on the three sofas, on Tuesday on the bed in the guest room, but most of the time we spent together in the cellar. She was crazy! Is this sex, I asked myself. What man can make a woman so happy?


Putziputzi was soon dismissed from her job.


I have no great opinion of husbands and I must admit I have good reasons for this. But that their wives should react with such jealousy was for me an insoluble puzzle.


It wasn’t long before I was lying in bed with Roswitha again.


The husband had probably seen that the loss of a servant can have serious consequences. Now it was his job to vacuum the whole house: from the cellar to the attic. Roswitha assured him this would only be for a short transitional period, until she had found a replacement for Putziputzi.


“Yes, yes!  But the replacement must be ugly and unattractive and she should only work in the house and she must not play with Tigerli”, he answered.


“Yes, yes! I agree”, answered Roswitha, “and it would be wise if you would allow Tigerli to sleep in the bed with me again”.


The husband willingly gave his consent.


He nodded his agreement and it was clear that he saw me in a new light.


I was no longer a competitor.


What the heck, he thought! The guy was sleeping in my bed with my wife when I was away anyway!


So thanks to the vacuum-cleaner I was able to continue my love-affair with my first love Roswitha.





******************************************
       
                      Who is Mr. Tigerli?                             











Ein lyrisches Portrait von Hilde Domin
Anne MacDonald Canham

 




 







Beijing Airpot


Mr. Tigerli in China

Copyright 2016 by Letizia Mancino
translation by Mary Holmes
All rights reserved  


Yes Betty, either or it seems he wanted to fly only with Singapore Airways.

Boeing or Airbus, it’s just the same isn’t it? Aren’t they both just fat birds with 500 passengers?

Yes, but Singapore Airlines has the most beautiful airhostesses: delicate, fine, graceful…  Mr. Tigerli had looked forward to the flight so much!

So the little man was disappointed?

You just can’t imagine how disappointed he was.
 But thank God one of the hostesses was a pretty Chinese girl. Mr. Tigerli purred loudly but she didn’t hear him because the purring of the Airbus 380 was even louder.

The poor cat!

You’ve said it Betty. Mr. Tigerli was in a very bad mood and asked me for a loud speaker.

I’m sure you can get one in 1st Class.

“”Russian Girl” had even heard you over the roar of the Niagara Falls” I said to Mr. Tigerli. “You are a very unfaithful cat. You wanted to get to know Asiatic girls. That’s how it is when one leaves one’s first love”.

And what did he say to that?

“Men are hunters” was his answer.

Yes, my dear cat, a mouse hunter. And what else did he say?

Not another word. He behaved as if he hadn’t heard me.

The Airbus is very loud.

I told him shortly “Don’t trouble yourself about “Chinese Girl”. There will be enough even prettier girls in China. Wait till we land in Guilin”.

Did he understand you?

Naturally Mr. Tigerli understood me immediately. Yes, sweetheart, don’t worry. They will find you something sweet to eat.

And he?

He was so happy.

No problem going through the immigration control?

Naturally!  Lots of problems. How could I explain to customs that the cat had come as a tourist to China to buy shoes?

Fur in exchange for shoes…

Don’t be so cynical Betty!

Cat meat in exchange for shoes?

I said to the officials. He isn’t a cat, he is Casanova.


He came through the pass control with no trouble!



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Is this Mr. Tigerli?





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Take an illustrated day trip through Washington state’s largest city with artist Candace Rose Rardon.
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Linda White yes,if my health allows.I have a few problems but is something I have always wanted to do,especially as I reread her books.


Linde Lund


Linde Lund Dear Linda I'll keep you posted.


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I still read Mrs Piggle Wiggle books to this day. I love her farm on vashon.




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Lila Taylor Good morning...Linde Lund
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