We have not written anything about Donald Trump for quite some time. So many others picked up the cudgel that we didn’t see where we had anything different to say.

Today, however, as we read, listen to and take in the past, what seems to us most important about Trump is being totally ignored.

Where and with whom did this man absorb the lessons of life he is now showing he accepted and is living?

One might legitimately and seriously ask the question, is his an example of the billionaire group in this society? Those who can cross the line from legal to incredibly foul, living without retribution? Taking advantage of those who go along to get along and who become successful by just either keeping quiet or seeing where they can support without losing, but gaining.

Trump is certainly the poster boy, leading and taking advantage of that group. When he is served by the law – today with these transgressions; in the past with the school he establish;and so much more that cost the public millions – where do they find him? Mar-a-Lago? His Bedminster cottage by the pool or by the water? His condo on Fifth Avenue in New York surrounded by those who wait on him hand and foot and are very skilled at saying “yes sir”?

And after he is served to appear in Court charged with incredible violations of every good, lots of ugly things are said about him, but who is appointed as judge to sit in judgment on Donald Trump in these instances? Judge Aileen Cannon – the woman who showed her own depravity and inability to do her job as judge where Trump is concerned. If the past is prologue she is not capable of seeing anything or doing anything about Trump except exonerate him. If he were a part of Middle-Class America, would these things be true and have happened? Would such a judge be sitting on the bench for one of them?

From where did Trump’s money come? – His grandfather who came to the United States from Germany and made enough to have a hotel and more. What did he do to gain that kind of fortune? Used women as prostitutes and he collected from their work. Does that give you some idea as to where Trump’s sexual abuse, disrespect, alleged rape, etc. of women comes from? Does it tell you the genesis of Trump’s profound disrespect of women and how he will use them? He was trained into such behavior at home.

And then we go through another generation – Trump’s father who reportedly left Trump some $250 million dollars. Check out his history and the lessons Trump would have learned at his feet!!!! Not the least of which would have been Trump’s bigotry! Trump’s inheritance was more than money and property. Not all children with such ancestors hew to the lessons learned at their ancestors feet – not all of Trump’s family have lived their lives in the way they were raised. Trump, however, seems to have not moved away from one wrong step in his growing up days.

And then Trump, living in Queens, New York is picked up and moved to Manhattan by his mentor – Roy Cohn. A man, a lawyer, who defended mafia figures and, it is said, lived like them and had their morals. When they died he became their memorial and worse.

Trump also became who he is today, his “finishing school” was under Roy Cohn. He showed how committed he is to the sin, corruption, ugliness to others, here for the money and nothing else, by the way he treated his mentor. Roy Cohn was the love of Trump’s life until Cohn ran into trouble at the end of his life and slid far down from where and who he was during livelier times. The man who helped to create a monster was abandoned by that monster he created. When Cohn most needed his friends some were there, but the one who was not was the one Cohn had done the most for and on whom he left his stamp – Donald J. Trump.

At the end of Cohn’s life when he was sick, in need of money, etc. who was among the missing ? When Cohn died who arrived at the Synagogue from which he was buried stayed a couple minutes in the back and then left? Guess who!

What we need to recognize and take in are those today supporting Trump. Going through his followers, try eliminating those who are mafia! The number of his followers then drops significantly. The United States has a far flung, large, mafia group. Not just the leaders whose names we know, but those who are involved under the leadership and on the periphery – they have family members committed to the mafia; they are on the sidelines doing a little bit here and there on the wrong side of the line which separates the legitimate from those who cross that line with no thoughts about right or wrong. Eliminate those from Trump’s following and the numbers drop even more dramatically – OH!!! – and lets not forget those who are paid to appear and act like Trump supporters. It is acknowledged there were many when Trump came down the escalator. It would have been a small, sad and lonely group without those paid to look as though they were Trump supporters. Don’t forget to eliminate those. AND don’t forget the wannabe’s here today and gone tomorrow! They come in for some recognition and enlarge the group of Trump supporters.

It is time we in these United States look with clear eyes at our fellow citizens and recognize them for who they are. There are many good, law abiding, gracious, loving, caring people. There are also, unfortunately, the group described above and they are well into the tens of millions.

May God open our eyes to the truth of what surrounds us and give us the stamina, the love of justice, the caring to be able to live without all the games which allows the Donald Trump’s of the world to gain the ascendency.

We are at the start of the 2024 race for president of the United States. As we enter this phase we see where the emphasis of the bigots will be placed. Usually it is on the most financially, economically, etc. viable areas to destroy them for others and shepherd them into our own small part of the world. In the process, making sure those called to be “better than” are once again satiated.

The race for president of the United States is one of the biggies where racism, sexism, etc. are redefined for the time going forward. We saw bigotry redefined when Obama ran and won and that was a good thing, although only for a very brief period of time. We saw it change after the realization that the “better than” group with their lives immersed in negativity was losing ground. We saw the media promote, to an extreme, the candidacy of Donald Trump which allowed him to win and bring along into the White House and into the rest of the country his extreme racism, sexism and so much more. Trump’s candidacy brought a sigh of relief to the “better than” group. With the ascendancy of Donald Trump as president and all of those he gathered around we saw bigotry increase dramatically.

We now see that bigotry against the elderly being redefined by the candidacy of Joseph Biden. This time, the elderly are in for a huge redefinition and dramatic increase in the kind of prejudice they experience. All aimed at destroying intergenerational wealth to insure the continuation of the bigotry which gives to those who are defined by this society as “better than” and takes away from everybody else. After all, every group has its elderly. What better way to re-set the wealth of different groups.

The media has already taken its position by making sure every little tit and tatle – every nuance of prejudice against the elderly is reported, increased, structured in ways that are more tightly and extensively talked about. This keeps the concept of the negativity and claimed weakness of the elderly ever in front of the citizens who will vote for the next president. It keeps bigotry against the elderly front and center until it is much increased, changed to meet the needs of a “better than” group and much of the wealth in the hands of these “geriatric others” in society ripped away.

Clearly, bigotry against the elderly is going to rule in this presidential campaign. It has to, so the inequality with which we live continues in full force and increases hitting hardest at these elderly people whose wealth we want to destroy. This kind of bigotry started increasing over the past few years so you knew what was in the future.

Give them Medicare and use that “gift” to drain the “not-better than” groups in society of any possible movement ahead. Don’t put the elderly in prison – that would awaken and stir up the general populace. Use Medicare to put them in hospitals, nursing homes, etc. Incapacitate them so it can seem legitimate to rip off their wealth accumulated over a long life. See that their wealth is put into the “right” hands – not into the hands of their family – that might cause a disruption of the carefully constructed racism, sexism, etc. – which determines everything in this society.

As the 2024 presidential race begins to heat up, so will the rhetoric and so will the reconstruction of the bigotry against the elderly to make it a normal, everyday thing – unmovable, intransient, into the structure so tight and vicious and ugly that the goal of the bigots will be attained.

We are now hearing – at the beginning of Joe Biden’s run for re-election – “yes he did a great job, but he is old.” “Yes, if only he was about 20 younger – maybe even 30 years younger would be better. ” And those who want to compete and whose ethics are totally flawed are predicting that he won’t live long enough to be president for the next four years. That is an extremely bigoted statement, but it will become more common place and accepted as the campaign continues.

Joe Biden is a man in good health, but that is cast as not being reliable because of his age. This ignores the fact that none of us are reliably healthy because we are humans and fallible on all levels all the time.

The wisdom and experience he has accumulated over the years because he is living a great, healthy and long life is not to be shared with the country because the elderly can’t be counted on to do that. They get sick, die, become senile. The bigotry in that concept is so strong it smacks you in the face. Younger people get sick, die, get Alzheimers at 40 and sometimes younger. The young also might not live long enough into a presidency to share their accumulated wisdom and experience. Fact is – they probably have not lived long enough to accumulate much experience nor especially much wisdom.

To look around and see how the elderly are being treated in this society is a disgrace. What really slams the door shut on love, goodness, grace, kindness is the fact that most are not seen – they have become the new invisible group and when questions are asked, attempts are made to “lock them up”. Usually for no reason, but the assumptions made – as are the assumptions when we see racism practiced out in the open and accepted as real – those assumptions are stereotypes coined to strip their wealth away, their genius, to take the awards away from their accomplishments and so much more.

To see the race for the presidency being used to promote, structure into the society a more lethal form of bigotry this time against the elderly, assumptions which are totally flawed but believed by those who need their identity to reflect more than who they actually are – it is tragic and says much about the weakness of the spiritual – ethical – good side of who we claim to be.

Get ready for much popping up in the media on a daily basis of this creation of a strong, negative, stereotype of the elderly. Look for many more to be “incarcerated” in nursing homes, hospitals, assisted living places which lock them away from the world and so much more.

Why are we so afraid of the elderly – our parents? What do we have to gain by all of this? Don’t we need the best person to be president of these United States and not the person who fits our stereotype fashioned by the media, hollywood, the image of the middle-aged – sort of handsome Northern European male who might not be right in the head, but is right for the image we want to project onto ourselves and to cloud the eyes of those looking on to think we are much better than we look because of the stereotype we have put on ourselves and projected onto others.

Dear God – let us see the people running this race for the presidency of the United States with clear eyes, not infected with the stereotypes we will have to endure as the print, digital, and all the other media tries to take us into another world which is imaginary and projected for the benefit of those who project themselves as “better than”. We need as president someone who will destroy the lines between us which have some as multi-billionaires and some of us as homeless. It is disgraceful how we have and continue to construct this world in which we live to be such a negative, uncaring, ugly place totally moving away from the beauty, grace, love and caring of the world You created.

We live into negativity in everything we do, feel, see, experience. We don’t seem to be able to live into anything else. We build homes with all kinds of flaws we have to constantly correct; we grow food with chemicals which make us sick and over time leads to serious and sometimes long-lived diseases with which we must cope; we make some people better than others because we don’t think this world is enough for us to be equal to one another; we move from one place to another in vehicles which destroy the very air we breathe; we set up other human beings as the ‘enemy’ against whom we must constantly protect ourselves with weapons we invent to kill those ‘others’ – WHY! What is wrong with us that we can’t constantly grow and live into the good side of humanity and we must always live into the evil trying to wipe out those who attempt to live into that goodness. Why must we describe their attributes negatively.

May we live long and prosper and may we appreciate people like Joe Biden who is doing just that and trying to make this a better place for us all. May we stop trying to construct negative stereotypes and instead construct good forms out of which we live and thrive and prosper – as equals.

Why is living in a world where we are all equal – all living together for our mutual benefit – and so much more – such an incredible threat. Why is that such a threat to humanity that some of us must live into our evil side and destroy everything living into the negativity which is in the world and which we must harness for our own ‘survival.’ Is there something great about surviving negatively when there is so much goodness that we could use and give helping us to grow in the true beauty of this planet on which we live?

by: Marceline Donaldson

In the life of one African American family ——

To say my upbringing was unusual is an understatement. To look at the men and women who had substantial influence over my life and were my family is to look at people who were black, white, rich, poor, powerful, ordinary, hard working, worked almost never, etc. etc.

My grandfather – O. C. W. Taylor – was an educator, journalist, entrepreneur, politician, but most of all he made sure his family was exposed to and a part of everything he did. First my mother, then me, and then even my first child. We traveled in circles which we thought were normal, but were far from it.

Starting at about 10 years old, I was put into journalist circles and expected to be an accomplished journalist and perform.

Having co-founded the Louisiana Weekly with C. C. Dejoie, Sr. and being someone who was into radio and television journalism, my grandfather was a busy man and we went along with him wherever he went. We didn’t go as small children who had to be kept out of the way, but as participants in everything he did. We had jobs to do and we were expected to do those jobs – well.

As an educator, he was principal of a grammar school in New Orleans and brought that and his journalism together by breaking into radio and television with his program on WNOE radio and WNOE television on Sunday mornings. I was one of his reporters and was on the air at a very young age reporting on what happened in several of New Orleans schools. Usually, students from the different African American schools in New Orleans and sometimes outside of New Orleans, appeared on his programs “in person.” They sang, talked about what they were learning and what was happening in the rest of their lives. Faculty from the school being reported on accompanied them and were also a part of the program. If that school was my assignment that week I would have been expected to investigate, write up what the school was doing and be the moderator for that part of the program. I was in a position to see basic racial change or rather what we thought was going to be such a change.

WNOE was an all-white station and its programming, at that time, covered different areas with moderators talking about their particular areas, others reporting on what was happening around the city, and more. Intellectually speaking it was a rather high-minded station.

My excitement came from the fact that I thought we were bringing about major racial change, which would help to bring about an integrated world and “separate and equal” was experiencing yet another blow.

As I watched over the years, what I saw was something very different.

WNOE changed – but it changed from white to black and from this intellectual programming which was all talking about ideas, etc. to one which was a jazz, blues, spirituals, all black station, which it remains to this day.

What my grandfather did was to open the door to another room for African Americans and as they walked into the room through that door, whites walked out through another door. So, black reach expanded and had a toe into a form of media they did not have prior to that, but “separate and equal” was not harmed. It remained structurally unchanged.

As I grew older watching this change, It became clearer that whoever held the reins of power over society was safe in their need to maintain that society as “separatist” and “better than” in these United States. As I grew older I also saw that there is no change that would bring about the death of “separate and equal”. Society was set up to maintain itself as structurally racist. At first I thought this was about those white males – those northern Europeans who needed to maintain such a structure, but then I remembered my history and began to realize other groups maintained racism before those primitive peoples took over and moved themselves up using others in this separatist and unequal way. Other groups, before the appearance on the stage of the Northern Europeans, did the same thing. Perhaps in a different way, but it amounted to being “better than” as a part of their identity and condemning others who they saw as being different from, defining them as “less than” and fair game to be exploited.

Many in my family spent their lives trying to bring about a more open, caring, sharing society. They brought about change, but it was not the kind of change they set out to do. They opened a door to a larger, more sophisticated society, but one that was still very separatist, racist, sexist, etc.

We had Africans, American Indians, English, Irish, Italian, Spanish and more even in my generation. Some identified as “colored” and later as Black and then even later as African Americans and some passed – passé blanc – and would come home from their jobs as white to live with their very mixed family. That means we all worked very hard to bring about change, but that change was elusive and the separate and unequal society remained entrenched in its bigotry re-institutionalizing its separateness wherever something different threatened to break out.

I watched that happen as this world turned technical – with computers, etc. It was a deliberate, organized, structured racism that was maintained. Some had knowledge and access in an easy, functional way. Others were deliberately turned away when they tried to be a part of this coming AI society so today, groups can be “less than” who are outside of that new societal grouping. – “We have to ‘help’ them because they were not there from the beginning and more. All lies, but ones to which just about everyone subscribes.

May God forgive the inability we show to drop the evil in favor of the goodness to which the life of Jesus and many other saviors and prophets pointed us. I mention the life of Jesus first because most of the people involved called themselves Christians. The life they were leading was anything but. First recognize and respect the common, shared humanity and equal-ness of all God’s people and then one day you will be with me in paradise.

We follow the adage to be grateful that you are one of this Society’s chosen so tomorrow you will all be together in the hell that separate and unequal creates. Daily – minute by minute – life in that hell can go from exquisite to miserable and we never attribute that to its root cause – our need to be “better than” and the price we will pay to maintain that position.

This appeared in the April 8, 2023 edition of the Harvard Crimson:

Leverett ‘Swatting’ Attack: At least five armed Harvard University Police Department officers stormed a Leverett House suite early Monday morning. The raid was prompted by a false 911 call from someone claiming to be a “kicked out” student who had taken a woman hostage in the suite. The students in the suite, who are Black, were ordered out of their rooms by the police at gunpoint.

Harvard students and alumni condemned the attack and some criticized the University’s response to the swatting attack. Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana acknowledged the attack in an email to students Wednesday night, more than two days after the attack occurred. 

______________________________________________

Bettina Comments:

There are many cases of police removing African Americans, other minorities and women from their homes without cause. Leverett House was home for the blacks so removed. We are publishing such attacks so they are known by a more general public and in some cases our research shows they were not published at all, but quietly covered over.

Why are the police – Harvard or otherwise, being used in such a way and what are they and others doing to stop such horribleness. Let me remind you of Dr. Henry Louis Gates – Harvard Professor and Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett – Episcopal priest. One removed by the police falsely claiming criminal reasons; one removed by the police from his home and forced into a psych unit of a local hospital without cause. If you remember, Dr. Bennett was sent back home within hours from the hospital because there was no reason to have attempted to humiliate him in such a way and Dr. Gates was arrested for breaking and entering his own home,. Dr. Gates no longer lives in the Harvard Square area which is and has been kept “white northern european male” forever.

What a choice!

I spent a couple years trying to recreate an appetizer I loved, but could not find the recipe. After much search, discussion, questions, amazingly, I discovered the recipe depends upon whether you are Jew or Christian.

In most cookbooks I found recipes for “Chicken Liver Pate. ” If you are not Jewish that is a wonderful, mostly upper class recipe beloved as an appetizer at many events. If you are Jewish you will pass that by and keep looking for your “Chopped Chicken Liver” recipe. What is sad is that they are one and the same! One small difference might be the Chopped Chicken Liver appetizer is a bit chunkier than the Chicken Liver Pate which is blended to within an inch of its life so it is smooth and almost silky! Confusion reigned until we discovered this secret.

(Screams, knashing of teeth, denials are all quite proper here.)

Once I discovered that bit of bigotry I was able to make the best Chopped Chicken Livers I have ever tasted. Serving it to friends I said nothing about what it was. They asked me for the recipe for my “Chicken Liver Pate.” And so it goes.

Taking advantage of such awfulness we give you ————————–

Bettina’s Chopped Chicken Liver Pate for your next gathering!

Buy fresh organic chicken livers in the amount you require

Sauté organic yellow onions in melted organic butter (that is the New Orleans ingredient without which you can not cook anything) and after a few minutes add the organic chicken livers. You can substitute any other oil for the butter as long as it is organic, but they won’t taste as good.

After a couple minutes add organic mushrooms – your favorite kind. We use mushrooms with a mild taste because we want the taste of the chicken livers to prevail. You might prefer the taste of your mushrooms to be equal to the taste of the chicken livers so that would determine your choice of ingredient.

Add cream cheese, salt, pepper and a couple tablespoons of organic apple cider vinegar. The amount of vinegar you use depends upon the amount of chicken livers you are cooking. So the cream cheese melts faster, cut it into small pieces and drop them into the pot over medium heat.

Shake a bit of tabasco sauce into the pan and stir to mix. Or you can add a bit of organic ginger for the bite you want to capture.

The tabasco sauce is one of the few non-organic ingredients we will use. Probably because I was raised on it. My mother used to have a bottle of the stuff in her pocket book wherever she went. It made food you were eating and not liking tolerable and you could eat it with a smile because it was drowned in the tobasco sauce.

Ginger is for those who don’t want to violate their “organic food only” oath, but want a bit of hot taste in the dish leaving your friends and guests wondering -“what was that unusual taste in the background”?

Saute in the pan until the chicken livers are done and only with a very small amount of pink showing.

Put the dish in a food processor until you reach the consistency you like. Depending upon the amount you are cooking you might have to put it into the processor in smaller amounts than your total pot all at once.

Serve it in individual dishes – appetizer dishes – with a plate under the dish on which you can put crackers or whatever else you would like to use to scoop up Bettina’s Chopped Chicken Liver Paté. If you have a very sophisticated palate you won’t be able to stop eating this – with or without the crackers – which should also be organic.

We discovered this great combination of food and spices which made an outstanding breakfast /brunch/dinner dish.

Everything, of course, is organic! That is crucial!

One large organic onion, sliced thin and put into a skillet with butter and grapeseed oil.

We would say into a skillet with butter, but we are becoming less conservative in our old age and using more varieties of oils.

Let the onion cook slowly in the oils while you slice organic button mushrooms – actually you could add any kind of mushrooms or a selection of several kinds.

Let these two (onion and mushrooms) cook in the oils with the onion for a few minutes. You don’t want to brown the onions just cook them to deliciousness.

Add organic cream cheese – we used about four ounces. The amount you use depends upon whether you are using one or more onions, etc. given the number of people you want to serve or the leftover amount you want to reserve for another meal.

Let the organic cream cheese meld with the rest of the ingredients in the skillet – preferably a cast iron skillet. As they melt into everything else add milk to make it a more liquid dish and add salt, thyme, tabasco sauce to begin the finishing process. After adding milk (organic) the dish will become thick in a few minutes which is the consistency you want to spoon over open organic English Muffin.

As the dish cooks and becomes this wonderfully smelling concoction, add very sharp organic cheddar cheese cut into small pieces so they can melt easily and quickly.

Serve over toasted organic English Muffins.

a bit of heaven in a skillet.

To start your Chicken Soup you will need:

One whole organic chicken – one or two onions (to your taste) – one green pepper, one red pepper (organic, of course) – 4 stalks of organic celery – a taste of garlic (one or two bulbs) – and several organic carrots.

Put 1/2 stick of organic butter in a very large pot.

Chop all of the vegetables above and fry them in the butter – lightly! While the veggies are cooking in the butter add thyme, oregano, salt, pepper to taste

When the vegetables have softened add the chicken and fill the pot almost to the top with water.

Put the top on the pot and let it simmer for a couple hours.

Before serving, put spaghetti in the pot (uncooked) and let the spaghetti soften and become an awesome addition to this Chicken Soup.

You can put this into the refrigerator and serve the next day – adjusting the seasonings as you go – or you can serve it as soon as it is ready.

The next time you want to serve what is left over, add something – (for example), organic ground beef to which you have added an egg, salt, pepper, thyme, oregano, maybe organic bread crumbs to turn the beef into meatballs also adding whatever other spices you enjoy with chicken and beef – add a vegetable of some kind like broccoli, or green peas, or french style green beans. Add water almost to the top of the pot each time you add new ingredients and let this simmer again for at least an hour. Add a different kind of noodles this time, instead of spaghetti and put them into the pot uncooked.

Each time you reheat the chicken soup it becomes something else and if you are careful with your seasonings, it will never turn up empty and you will always have an excellent soup to serve on a moments notice. Well, maybe not a moment – more like 15 to 30 minutes – which is how long it will take to heat this soup.

You will eventually wind up with the most delicious Creole Gumbo you have ever eaten as you reach the point of adding lobster, crab, shrimp, etc. etc. and possibly rice once the noodles and other such ingredients have been eaten.

Not all these ingredients at once, however, only two or three ingredients each time you reheat this “soup.” And when you “reheat it” it is best to simmer it for an hour or more to incorporate everything into the best taste and consistency always filling the pot almost to the top with water before you move on with the reheating process. If you would like a bowl of soup without adding more ingredients and simmering for hours, take the amount you want to serve and reheat it in another pot – putting your “soup pot” back into the refrigerator for another day.

What was a settled, beautifully designed area has apparently lost its way and is now reeling in what looks like a drunken stupor of too much money; too little design sense; no historical thoughts, no room at all for the being true to the educational reasons which brought it into being – etc. etc. etc..

Is it trying to “upgrade”? “Upscale”? We don’t know what to call it that is happening to the “Square”, but what we do know is that we won’t call it “elegant”, “historically apprised”, “settled beauty”. It looks like it is becoming the home for the very nouveau-nouveau-riche; for the design challenged class; for the territory where there is more money than anyone knows how to use for the benefit of all and so it is squandered on monstrosities like 4 Willard Street. (We won’t even try to comment on what is happening within the intensely commercial areas of Harvard Square. There aren’t enough painkillers in the universe to spread around to subdue what you feel when you realize a quietly elegant part of harvard square is going and will probably continue to sink into the abyss of too much money, too little aesthetic/design sense………………….

We went for a walk to see some of our favorite places in Harvard Square and to look again at some of our favorite houses. We regret the walk. We are now stuck with the images in our minds of this unbelievable change that has happened to 4 Willard Street. It was an elegant house on a side street which reflected a similarly designed house on Brattle Street. The two houses were wonderful reflections of one another and you could see both as you walked along the sidewalk. One on a large lot and the other on a much smaller one, but both reflecting a similar architectural point of view.

4 Willard Street was sold about one to two years ago for approximately $4,000,000.00. Quite reasonable at the time for its location, size, etc. etc. It is back on the market today for approximately $9,900,000.00. That price more than doubles the sales price and the reasoning, we assume, to justify such a major leap in price is the work which has been done to the house to bring it out of its slumber into the sharp, ugly, almost Levittown light of its current incarnation. A monument to the “New Towns” of the 1950’s – but, of course, on a much grander scale. Look at what you are leaving as your legacy to future generations, Harvard Square. Who is in charge of maintaining the historicity of the area? They should be fired immediately.

We don’t know who is guarding the history of Harvard Square, but we do wonder if money changed hands for such an outrageously obscene, sharply and permanently ugly redesign of what was once an elegant house. “Caricature” is too weak a word to describe this.

There are people homeless on the street who could use the money being spent on such obscenities. There is affordable housing which needs to be addressed so many more don’t wind up on the streets. To waste money on such a really awful ‘renovation’ is on the door step of architectural criminality.

Wonder who is going to buy this house? We could speculate on their background; education; world exposure; etc., but why bother. Someone will gloriously revel in their new home, its location and all that surrounds it. Will they then try to “upscale” and “upgrade” more in this neighborhood to match their design sense!!!! (or lack thereof)????

Buy, bye Historical Harvard Square. We feel blessed to have been able to see you at a time before this obscene expenditure of money destroyed all that you were about.

This is a topic very few want to touch. Having had several horrendous experiences with many real estate brokers and companies we decided to jump into the middle of the ocean and swim to shore, exposing and pointing out the dangers and great things along the way.

The biggest problem in this industry is “redlining” and the extreme lengths folks working in the industry will go to deny that such exists. We are here to tell you redlining is alive and well and making sure the neighborhoods in these United States do not integrate. Not just along the lines of racism, but other forms of bigotry also exist. Even discrimination against women who are alone raising their children are kept out of some neighborhoods which do not want their children “contaminated.

This is the basis on which much of the other forms of bigotry are maintained. Most of us don’t realize how many times we were told the neighborhood we wanted didn’t have anything great for sale at the moment, but look at what we have here……..

Schools were extremely difficult to integrate and still are because the real estate market maintains the “racial integrity” of the areas in which it operates – which is the entire country.

There is a new twist we are discovering. Some people are beginning to claim the way to deal with this is to have black-owned real estate companies; latinx-owned real estate companies, etc.

When you look into that, a few have been established and the result is they work in black neighborhoods and keep them black or latinx neighborhoods and keep them latinx, etc.

This, unfortunately also has to do with selling as well as buying a house. As a minority, the price you receive for selling your house is quite a bit different and lower than the exact same house or a very similar house would receive in white neighborhoods or in white neighborhoods if you are a minority.

If as an African American you managed to buy a house in a white neighborhood and then years later try to sell at the same price your white neighbors would get for the house if they were selling – that will not happen. The house stands unsold for years until the owners finally decide to reduce the price to much below what non-minorities would receive for the same kind and quality of house.

It is the way America works and there does not seem to be change on the horizon.

We recently had a horrific experience working with the Donaldson/Bennetts as they put their house on the market. They went through several realtors and the experience was the same with each – except the last was unbelievably bad and showed in spades the extreme racism.

In their first attempt they put the house on the market for $4.7 million. Talking to appraisers, that was considered too low, but they wanted to move south and so decided to take the lesser amount to be able to sell faster.

Very few people came to the open house and only one potential buyer showed up after the open house. That was with the first broker, who did everything by the book to attempt to sell the house.

They changed brokers and raised the price to $5.5 million and their experience was identical. They changed again with another identical experience. Meanwhile, houses selling for more and appraising at the same price as their home appraised were selling almost immediately. Some of these houses were in neighborhoods considered not as “desirable”, some were smaller, etc.

By the time they reached the third broker, they decided the house needed a “make over” and they set about doing just that. Nothing changed!

Yet another broker with an open house poorly attended with only one broker showing up with a client in tow for months after the open house. Developers, however, were very interested at a very low price and were going to tear apart and put back together again this historical house which didn’t need tearing apart. Electrical systems were up to date as was everything else. The ‘historical’ part went by the wayside with nothing but verbalized consideration. The house needed an exterior paint job and very little else.

And then comes the realtor team which acted out racism such as we have not seen in quite a long time.

The problem with that was the fact that this well known national brokerage firm has a Black/Jewish owner. However, we learned years ago that whites are not the only group that practices bigotry in this country.

The Donaldson/Bennett’s expected this to be a wonderful experience. Instead it was the experience from hell.

The real estate team set up an open house which was moderately successful and as the Donaldson/Bennett’s watched from across the street because they were not allowed into the house while the open house was going on – people came and went and were allowed to go all over this $5.8 million dollar house, full of antiques, all by themselves. One person came walking down the street carrying a protest sign which he was forced to park outside the house and went in to start an upheaval. At that point, the Donaldson-Bennett’s left their perch across the street and went into their house to stop all hell from breaking loose and sure enough that is what was about to happen.

After that open house the Donaldson/Bennett’s discovered the real estate brokers intended to have such an open house every weekend until the house was sold. That did not make the Donaldson/Bennett’s happy, but they decided to go along with the program assuming the realtors knew better than they did because they were more experienced, etc.

The next week-end the signs went up and once again the open-house started. Watching from across the street the Donaldson/Bennett’s saw people walk into the house with no one at the front door – which was wide open – and go up the stairs with none of the realtors even aware that someone had entered. They saw people come out looking rather strange, but didn’t put two and two together until the open house was over and they went home to reclaim their property. They discovered many beautiful antique pieces they collected over decades were missing. The realtors denied that such happened. Claimed they didn’t let anyone in unattended, etc.

Before reaching the open house, the program with this real estate company was one that loaned you money to do what needed to be done and you paid them back when the house was sold and closed. This, the Donaldson/Bennet’s thought was a fantastic program. That meant to the Donaldson/Bennett’s that they would touch up those places that needed it and they would hire people to help where needed. After all, Ms. Donaldson had a three year education at the University of Minnesota’s School of Architecture under Ralph Rapson and had studied design in other places well and had helped restore houses along the way because of her interest in historical preservation. That is not what happened.

While the Donaldson/Bennett’s started with painting the house they were still remembering the realtor – African American – from the same company who they spoke to about selling their house before they met these other realtors – white – and they were shook by what he presented. He would have the house painted; he talked to the people he wanted to paint the house; they arrived and looked around and came in with a bid of $30,000.00. Shook from that experience the Donaldson/Bennett’s hired their own painter who charged $12,000 for the same job. Years earlier, the Donaldson/Bennett’s had been having the house painted one side at a time after they had new first quality cedar siding put on each side which was then painted. Re-painting a house with new siding and only one layer of paint should have been a breeze, instead it was claimed to be a very big $30,000 job.

The Donaldson/Bennett’s went ahead with other jobs for which they hired the contractors, having learned their lesson and being wary of what could happen in these circumstances. However, they discovered there were even worse road blocks ahead.

The ‘realtor in charge’ of a ‘team’ had her ‘team’ show up without the Donaldson/Bennett’s hiring them, without the Donaldson/Bennett’s knowing what they charged, etc. and they started to ‘clean’ the house. They did not wash the walls – they did not clean the windows, the Donaldson/Bennett’s paid someone else to do that – and the next thing that happened the Donaldson/Bennett’s saw them outside doing landscaping when they had specifically said no landscaping should be done.

The net result was nothing short of disastrous. The cost was $2,800 to “clean” a house which was basically already clean. Outside the branches of a tree were cut because the realtor wanted them cut and instructed her crew to do just that after the Donaldson/Bennett’s said please do not touch the tree nor any other landscaping. What they did was to change a beautiful hidden garden of which the Donaldson/Bennett’s were proud and had spent decades cultivating and which no one knew existed behind the driveway because the trees blocked your view of what was behind it into a very public open and ugly place. The tree branches were half sawed through and left. There were old twigs from someplace left in the driveway and leaves were blown out of the “hidden garden,” which was no longer hidden, into the driveway and left in piles for the Donaldson/Bennett’s to pick up.

The Donaldson/Bennett’s have not had lights on the outside on their front porch since this disaster because this crew, working for the ‘team leader” took the porch lights down with no electricians license and cleaned them. At first, the Donaldson/Bennett’s were delighted that this job went well until they discovered after a very brief time of working, the lights stopped working and haven’t been able to be used since. The “team leader” ignored the problem her cleaning crew had caused.

The realtor who hired and managed this crew had them clean the stove in the kitchen. A beautiful commercial stove which worked beautifully for years. They cleaned this cast iron plus other materials stove on which you do not put rough cleansers and the stove didn’t work after they finished. The pilot light in the oven did not turn on as well as pilots on top of the stove and they ruined the finish on parts of the stove in the process. It cost the Donaldson/Bennett’s over $1,000 to bring the stove back to where it was before it was touched by this realtor and her crew.

Everyone who came to the house exclaimed over the beautiful wood floors which the Donaldson/Bennett’s spent a lot of time and money caring for over the decades. The floors were beautiful. Not anymore. Every other day someone from this crew arrived with a wet mop and very harsh chemicalized cleaners and for reasons no one understood, mopped the wood floors with water and chemicals until they were discolored and very ugly. This after the Donaldson/Bennett’s told them not to touch the wood floors with water. Apparently, they took their marching orders from the “team leader” and ignored everything the Donaldson/Bennett’s asked them to do or not to do. The realtor saw this and ignored what she had wrought.

We could go on for pages because so much was done wrong. However, you get this part of the message.

This same realtor has done other houses which turned out quite lovely. The owners of those houses were white. The Donaldson/Bennett’s are black. Quite a difference. It shows in the results.

The bottom line here is only one person looked through the house the one year this realtor held the house under hostage. That person made an offer – the only offer received – and it was for $2 million dollars under the asking price – even below the price appraised by the city. The people who made the offer were people who received much of their income from trying to “upgrade” inner city blacks. That made quite a statement to us as to what is wrong with this country and how it handles its attempts to move away from what years of slavery and white racism has wrought.

The city of Cambridge is full of instances of bigotry in the real estate industry and there is no sign of any change. When one does not admit ones problems there is no one to begin to solve them.

The schools will stay segregated and the private schools will thrive as parents strive to keep their children out of the path of “those others.”

Cambridge Rindge and Latin had the reputation of being extremely segregated. There was pilot school where one gained entrance through a lottery. Amazingly that lottery produced the children of professors, doctors, lawyers who attended CRLS “winning the lottery” on a consistent basis with the laws that governed the Pilot School quite different from those in other parts of CRLS.

At the CRLS graduation we attended it was a shocker to see the classes come in. House A started the procession and the color of the students was very white. As other classes – House B through, the color of the children shocked because the students in the last class of the alphabet were quite brown compared to the others.

What causes that? Try looking at who lives in which communities and what they expect from their children’s school to keep them in public schools and not pulling them out of the public schools and putting them into the many private schools in the Cambridge area.

O, My! We can hear the screams and objections from several cities away!

Your comments will be appreciated.

by: Marceline Donaldson

Being from New Orleans, one of my joys growing up was to have grits for breakfast.

When my eyes opened enough to speak I called downstairs to say – “grits momma, grits.”

In those days, my favorite breakfast was “drits and liba.” However, unbeknownst to be as to why – for years after I left home I couldn’t stand to eat liver. My grandmother made grits with chicken livers for breakfast when I insisted and it is only today that I have begun to be able to again eat that combination. Don’t know why, it just happened.

We don’t have liver very often, however, because grits in the Greater Boston food stores is practically non-existent, especially if you eat only organic foods. You can sometimes find grits, but it is guaranteed to be the ugly white mushy kind and it is usually labeled “polenta.”.

Looking for the grits of my youth, I came across The Congaree Milling Company in Columbia, South Carolina. Their grits is made with whole kernel organic corn and it is exceptional.

When I discovered them I also discovered the farming communities around the country, which are taking growing foods which are nutritionally excellent, with the taste still intact, which have not been poisoned by the sprays and are not near tasteless because they are grown in depleted soil.

What is special about these farming communities is the way they interact with and help one another. One grows the food; another will have uses for the food tied to a restaurant; or they produce foods for sale which are not overly processed and bland combining basic ingredients together in new ways. All organic – all grown in very rich soil – all making delicious meals and contributing to long-lived and healthy people.

I am still, however, working on that chicken liver. Although some mornings when she didn’t feel flush with money it was beef liver and occasionally calves liver. Can’t cook it the way my grandmother did – and since I didn’t pay attention to the cooking but only to the eating, with my grandmother dead for many years I have no way to recover that breakfast.

The hangover I have from her upbringing is waking up at 3:30 to 4am in the mornings needing that cup of coffee one can only get in New Orleans. I was up at that hour because she woke with the birds and went to bed with the birds and would bring me a cup of warm milk and while sitting on the side of the bed would deliberately pour a little coffee into the milk so we shared a cup of coffee (however mine was ‘sort of” coffee), but I still I became addicted even without the caffeine.

With grits there are all kinds of combinations. Grits and sausages is one substitute. Grits and shrimp is also good. A concoction I discovered needing a quick meal and not having the energy to do substantial cooking follows: (it has no name)

Put one cup of Congaree Coarse Yellow Grits into a sauce pan to which you add two cups organic milk, salt to taste and butter to taste. Let this cook, stirring occasionally until it has that consistency like nothing else.

To accompany the grits:

Put butter in a sauce pan to melt; add mushrooms; crab meat; turmeric; thyme; tabasco sauce; soy sauce; and cook for a few minutes. To this add a packet of organic cream cheese and stir until the cream cheese melts. Add three well beaten eggs and stir to incorporate the eggs. Add milk to get the taste and consistency you like best. The Cream Cheese will thicken this dish and the milk will help thin it out to the consistency you like best. The milk and eggs will mitigate the strong taste from the seasonings. We like that strong taste, however, many are accustomed to a more bland concoction.

The above on one side of the plate with grits on the other makes a fantastic breakfast.

If your budget is tight you might find “imitation crab meat (the kind cut into squares and add that instead of the real crab meat.) The cost difference is dramatic. $30.00 for the crab meat and $3.99 for the imitation. Unlike grits, you can find the imitation crab meat in just about every grocery store in a plastic bag screaming with its colors as to what the bag contains.

Served with your homemade biscuits you have a breakfast to keep you going for days.

To find The Congaree Milling Company – 1629 Bluff Road – Columbia, South Carolina 29201 –

orders via email to – sales@TheCongareeMillingCompany.com

questions at – info@The Congaree Milling Company.com

Their produce is certified organic by Clemson University

We are living in a very racist/sexist society which is changing from majority white northern european male in charge of everything; better than everybody; all accolades go to them and etc.

That is changing and the society is becoming more “diverse”. There are women and minorities coming along who don’t take kindly to living in a society which oppresses them and they are beginning to have the tools and opportunities to change this way of organizing society. They see another vision and have started to work towards it.

When Harvard University – that trend setting lifestyle of a place – is apologizing and beginning to make amends for having used human beings as slaves to build its institution you know basic change is happening.

Society itself is changing its makeup to the point where it will soon be majority-minority. In other words there will be more folks we now class as “minority” than there will be white northern european “upper class” males.

We elect Barack Obama and the United States goes crazy. We still are out there melting down showing where we really are by making sure Obama does not have influence after his presidency. We elected Donald Trump to make a statement and to keep this society from turning “black.”

Women are beginning to show their mettle. You see women in many areas which were just male not too many years ago. What you also see is that in many of these areas the women are “outshining” the men. That means women will be out there taking over more top jobs; making inroads into places they were excluded from and took upon themselves the burden of self-exclusion and blocking other women who did not see being feminine as thew goal, but being feminist as a better way to go.

The political and other efforts in this society today are to keep that from happening. Roe v Wade is the one in front of us today deflecting us from the job we need to do and we are allowing that to happen. Our signs read as though Roe v Wade is about babies being aborted when it is really about bringing back the extreme oppression of women.

We took a big step in that direction when we appointed the current Supreme Court with decades before that happened somehow ignoring and moving on to things other than codifying Roe v Wade into our laws. Those who participated in that major move are just as guilty as today’s Supreme Court in making sure women are and will remain for generations seriously oppressed at the beck and call of the ‘master.’

Todays Supreme Court is ready to roll back everything which grants equality to the wrong groups of people. Roe v Wade was responsible for a good deal of the movement we have seen in women today, which is why.the big discussion and fight today is over Roe v Wade. When that fight has been won, where to go next – Brown v Board of Education? You can see the groundwork for reversing Brown being put in place today with several states putting in place very racist educational agendas. The fight against those agendas will produce the ground on which this Supreme Court will very casually overturn Brown v Board of Education.

We need to fight for what is right and put the reasons out front. We are not doing that with Roe V Wade. We are talking about the “lives of babies not yet born”; we are talking about “murdering the unborn; we are talking about that kind of thing when that is really not the issue. Keeping women barefoot, bare breast and pregnant has been a joke for many decades. That is what the fight is about to overturn and wipe away any possibility of women having abortions. Life and death is not the issue in Roe v Wads; the unborn child is the least of our concern.. Keeping women oppressed is what it is all about. Especially when you look at and hear those who want to make sure there are NO exclusions – not rape, not incest, not anything. That is the only way to block women from continuing on the road they are now traveling. Throw blocks and rocks on that road and the biggest block of all is “no access to abortion for anyone.”

Now – lets move on to overturning Brown v Board of Education. I think that will happen – if we continue on this road – in about 2024.

Bettina Lifestyle Community is many things. One is a private selection of wonderful homes where members can choose to stay when they are traveling.

The homes in this collection vary dramatically from one another. Some are exquisitely beautiful, some are works of art, historical, interesting, primitive, farms, businesses where you can learn and participate in what they do and they are located in the best places. The owners or those living in the homes, as hosts to those visiting, are interesting, learned in many areas, artists, musicians, intellectual leaders and more. We do not have homes that are unoccupied or unhosted where you find the key under the mat. Bettina Homes in this collection are only open to members of the Bettina Lifestyle Community.

We invite you to join Bettina Lifestyle Community so you are able to travel with us. If you made reservations and stayed in one of our homes previously, you are already a member. Otherwise the cost to join is $25.00 and an application for membership follows:

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Bettina Network, inc.

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email: bettinanetwork@comcast.net

Someone will respond to you if your membership is accepted.

Your card will not be charged unless your membership application is accepted.

taken from a dessert served by Wendell Wallace

*When we get a wonderful photographer, these types of articles will be shown with pictures. Until then, your imagination or your actual trying of the recipe will have to suffice.

Bake or buy large cookies

Heat them in the oven until just warmed

Top with ice cream to complement the kind of cookies you are using. Several scoops to look great.

Serve.

What could be simpler. The surprise of those eating this dessert was palpable because the warm cookies added just the right and unexpected touch.

Your feedback?

Several years ago, Rev. Bennett and his wife tried to help a woman who was recently homeless and together with her brother they were able to get housing and a different kind of life for this person.

Marceline and Rev. Bennett would pick her up on Saturdays and take her to lunch. They shopped the estate sales and tried to make sure she was just fine. She was very unhappy with her then current housing and the people around her so they helped her find new housing, where she lives currently.

She became involved in far right wing politics – with which the people who carried out this life shattering action against the Donaldson/Bennett’s were also involved.

Ms. Nora Al WetAid, who was head of Protective Services swore out the affidavit which was used to have the police pick up Rev. Bennett first claiming a Section 12 against him – the one that allows the police to pick up and put into a psych unit of a hospital someone who has had too much to drink, or is on drugs or in other ways is a public threat. The hospital immediately released him because it clearly was a very questionable action by the state agency.

However, he was picked up again the next day with the claim that he had to be removed from his home because his wife was medically abusive of him. Since they had seen doctors that year several times and he was just out of a different hospital; this action seems to have been done by a rival hospital trying to set up a psych unit; and more. This time he was kept for five week for no medical reason in a locked ward and not released until Marceline put the story on MGH’s Facebook Page. All of a sudden Dr. Bennett’s family was told to come and get him. MGH, however, collected $125,000 which they should not have invoiced, let alone collected from Dr. Bennett’s insurance after both Dr. Bennett and Marceline sent a statement to the hospital refusing them the right to charge him, especially since he was kept by the hospital against his will and after having made several attempts to leave.

Our question has been about the woman from Protective Services’ Saudi connections, given the strong stance the Donaldson/Bennett’s have taken writing about Donald Trump and company. We are still doing that research and it is still ongoing until we get answers to many questions. We are moving in that direction because the affidavit is so full of untruths and the woman who is at the center of this is known by the state agency to do things like this – we think the Nora Al WetAids of the world took advantage of the fact that she is mentally unstable, regularly sees a psychiatrist, and has had serious problems with schizophrenia for decades. Knowing that, to use such a person to start the process of what was started against Rev. Bennett and Marceline speaks volumes to us about what this is really about.

The affidavit sworn to by Ms. Nora Al-Wetaid is not true; was not investigated before it was written, sworn to and used by the attorney for the state agency, who knew or should have known the document he presented to the Court to start this horribleness was purgery.

Many people are now talking to Rev. Bennett and Marceline about their very similar problems. What is common to all and was also common to what happened to Rev. Bennett and Marceline is the very secretive nature of the origination of what happened to them and what subsequently became an ongoing nightmare.

Clearly, there are reasons those very beginnings have been hidden. It allows what follows to happen with the people targeted not having the ability to properly respond because the facts of how it all began are hidden from them. – and, unfortunately, also from their attorneys.

Peoples lives and assets have been taken under such circumstances – in violation of much including the Court process and procedures, because of the way Guardianship laws are being abused with what we see as the ultimate goal of removing a person whose politics we don’t like, destroying the qualify of their lives and possibly life itself, and helping oneself to their assets. We also see the racist side to this which is the elimination of generational wealth of minorities, including Jews and women.

Now that the Donaldson/Bennetts know how this all got started it is up to them what next steps they will take. This clearly had a goal of relieving them of their assets and putting those assets and probably the people themselves under Guardianship. It is amazing that this happens in a country which values freedom and individual rights.

It is time for this to change.