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The Bettina Oracle speaks about the U. S. Tax Cut Bill

Saturday, December 2nd, 2017

The U. S. Tax Cut Bill ends democracy and the republic.

The tax cut bill just passed by the United States Congress has had many detractors for tons of reasons. The real evil in the bill, which is almost being overlooked, is the little bit which eliminates the estate tax.

It could be called “The Bill to Restructure the United States”. Or – “The Bill to substantially increase the strength, number and wealth of the American Oligarch’s”. Or – ” Lopsided Wealth and Privilege on America’s doorstep.”

Now that the tax bill is in place – the next order of business is a recession like the one which started in about 1929. A stock market bubble followed by a crash. Serious upheavals are necessary to totally change the government of a country and this is how it is and will be done.

When the economy wipes off some of the dust and the smoke settles, it will be a new country where Political Correctness will have been redefined to mean – White Male Northern European Ancestry people in total power and control. Everyone else has different and diminishing degrees of middle classless down to poverty. Those who object, rebel – in jail or dead.

What amazes me is how you are distracted by some media, well meaning, but not understanding what they are analyzing and/or the repercussions from what they are saying – currently distracted by the machinations of the United States President, Donald Trump. You are distracted by your own negating and refusal to take responsibility for ourselves as United States citizens.. Sometimes that is great with many rewards and sometimes that requires sacrifice.

Greed, avarice, jealousy, sin has blown smoke in your faces and all around. You are definitely not keeping the machinery of government running smoothly and in the direction of equality, etc. etc. etc. You are devolving down deeper into sin blaming others for your laziness and need to be accepted by others instead of working towards speaking truth to power and taking the risks that requires.

Each time we have been on the verge of a United States which is diverse and which takes responsibility for all of its citizens something comes in to short circuit that and turn us in another direction. Today, we are suffering from the maturation of the Republican Party’s Southern Strategy started under Richard Nixon and carried to a higher level by Ronald Regan. We are ranting about Donald Trump’s usurping the end of Barack Obama’s presidency with treasonous acts while not remembering Ronald Regan. Wasn’t it under this Regan when prisoners were set free from another country on the day he was inaugurated? How could that happen unless his transition team acted as another government usurping the time and power of the government elected before RR took office? Regan let you know where he was coming from in a very sophisticatedly racist way – he traveled to Mississippi to announce his run for the office of president. Trump did and will continue to do some of the same things, but he is not sophisticated and doesn’t know how to camouflage his making sure these United States continues with its white male privilege.

Since the presidency of Barack Obama, we have seen how a more diverse, equal, caring country can look. It was a shock to some of you who were accustomed to exercising power over and being better than. You were and are not going to give up those sins. Better the devil you know than the world of incredible beauty in which you could live, but for……

The result of the eight years spent under Barack Obama’s presidency WOKE those who had assumed that racism, sexism homophobia, xenophobia and all the rest were here to stay and safely intrinsic to the structure of our government. When the shock of Obama’s presidency hit those accustomed to taking from others; pushing back others, etc. they came out in force and now are able to take off their white sheets; proclaim their Nazi beliefs and more.

The American Oligarch’s, who have never been turned off by working with exactly that segment of this society to gain power and control over opened their pocket books and put out their wish list to those who are moved by money. And they were and are successful.

One thing those American Oligarch’s have forgotten, if they ever knew it – they have children. Your children, no matter your wealth or power, are the most unpredictable people on earth. Karma says – will your children be in need of what you have taken from others one day in the not too distant future when you are gone? Will anyone reach out to them or will they be left to spiral down into the same gates of hell which you occupy – only their spiraling down will be while alive?

Be careful! KARMA is a bitch!

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Cleaning Wood Floors on a Holiday?

Sunday, November 26th, 2017

I spent the Thanksgiving holiday cleaning my wood floors. Since I was a guest at someone else’s house for Thanksgiving I was able to do that and then go to dinner feeling really smug, superior and with imaginary smiley faces above my head because I had done great work and then appeared beautifully coiffed and dressed for the dinner. Try it – you might find a great sense of satisfaction to take with you as you enjoy time with family and friends. And – when you invite them over to your house you can show off your newly beautiful wood floors. This also eliminates the need to sand your wood floors every seven years or so – it preserves the wood; keeps it looking spectacular; and any imperfections turn into beauty spots as you oil away.

Why was this a great thing to do? When I returned home, the house smelled fantastic and there were no off gases to disturb my already disturbed indigestion, full stomach, food coma, etc.

Bettina Network’s Blog has talked about cleaning wood floors. I think I have taken their discussion one step further because I found the oil which does not become tacky after more then one application. I used their method, just changed the kind of oil. You can search this blog for what they have written, but if you try it I suggest that you use Grapeseed oil. I think they suggest mixing oils or something like that. I have used Grapeseed oil on my wood furniture in the past and reasoned that it would probably also be good for the floors – especially since having put several applications over time on my wood furniture without any sticky/tacky results this must be the oil to use.

This is not for the faint of heart. This is for the human much in need of upper body exercise and strenuous, sustained exercise at that. That little OOOO steel wool does not give you wide sweeping quick results. I guess that is why those chemicals, preservatives and other things have become so popular in this society. We don’t want to work. With slavery out, having to do it yourself results in lots of sin falling on others as we try to have quick and easy to use products replace slaves. If you are interested in maintaining your good health – or at the very least not doing any more damage than you have already done to your body – you might ignore the amount of work and time this takes and try replacing those quicker methods and dangerous chemicals with this tried and true, for generations .way of doing things. Knowledge we’ve lost and can’t pass on to our children. What we are passing on is very lethal to them and their progeny and to any objects on which we are using those chemical-laden products.

We have replaced the positive work of former generations with going to the gym – walking – biking, etc. Nothing wrong with any of those things, but when it comes to life maintenance we turn that from the process of exercising the same muscle groupings into drudgery that we have to pay others to do and give them seriously health negating products to do this work. That is really screwed up.

First – if you have not done this before you need to clean your floors. This is not a necessary step, but one that will make you feel better. I did this with water and Mrs. Meyers. As I moved along I replaced Mrs. Meyers with organic apple cider vinegar and then replaced that with just plain water and essential oil (lavender – my favorite oil for cleaning because moths and other such insects don’t like to live around this essential oil and I love the smell it gives to the house.). It wasn’t until I almost finished this cleaning step that I realized it was a lot of work for nothing. I could have gone straight to the OOOO steel wool and grapeseed oil with better results. But I felt better and felt the floors were cleaner with this extra step. Upbringing is hard to overcome.

This was much needed because I have been slack lately. Tired of cleaning. Thought I was finished with this part of life, but the house ignored that thought and just went merrily on getting dirty again.

After washing the floor – I used OOOO steel wool and grapeseed oil. Pour some grapeseed oil on the wood floor and rub it in with the OOOO steel wool. If you have lots of wood floor you are in for a very long project. I suggest you break it up into several days. It is unbelievably good for the upper body. You can drop your gym membership if you clean your own house using natural ingredients. If you hire people to help you clean you are in for a long, brutal fight to get them to give up their horrible, chemical products. Things are so bad now that people who clean bring their own vacuum cleaners and those who hire them brag about the fact that they don’t own a vacuum cleaner. This young generations is spawning its own diseases and transmitting them in the most insane ways.

Rub the floor with the OOOO steel wool until all dirt is removed. This is the real cleaning – the water and stuff was just suggested for those who don’t feel anything is clean without the suds and water step. For the rest of us you could start with the OOO steel wool on the wood floor and forget washing with water – this does a better job.

I did one small square of the floor at a time. Moved the furniture from that square – oiled the floor – moved to the opposite side of the room – moved furniture from that small square – did the floor and then moved the first square’s furniture back into place because the oil dried and when I finished the room was ready for use.

After oiling with OOOO steel wool and grapeseed oil, wipe the floor with a soft cloth until as much of the oil is taken up as possible. You will have a slight sheen and in about an hour the floor is ready to be walked on and it looks unbelievable. For cleaning cloths I cut up my old, ripped sheets and keep them in a laundry basked using them as necessary. I also cut up my old towels and keep them in the same place. Would you believe I have a friend who actually goes to the store and buys cleaning cloths? I couldn’t imagine spending money on such – especially since she generally throws out her sheets and towels when they are no longer usable as such.

For upkeep – simply use the soft cloth with a little grapeseed oil on the cloth and wipe up the floor. If you have dirt working its way into the floor, use the OOOO steel wool to get those spots clean and then wipe the floor as dry as possible with the grapeseed oiled cloth.

Grapeseed oil is a little expensive, but not nearly as much as it would cost for the commercial floor cleaners and waxers which will make sure your house is full of off gases from the process for days and you will not be aware of all the chemical stuff you are breathing into your body setting it up for some kind of disease down the road. Grapeseed oil for a normal room costs about $6 unless you want to go upscale and get the best grapeseed oil and that will cost you about $9-12 for a bottle and that is about how much you will need for a very large room. Commercial cleaners cost quadruple that amount and more depending on which commercial products you use.

Have you noticed the difference between those living an organic life style and those going the processed/commercial/chemicalized route? The people I see who look much younger than their years and who are healthier than you think you have a right to be are the ones using this kind of cleaning process with its attendant products and supplementing that with organic foods.

Food – Naturally grown products – are all that we need to keep a clean house. Those people I know into fanatically clean houses actually have the filthiest houses on the block. They are houses that will set you up for a cold or other kind of illness because the products they use for what they consider a fantastically clean house are really quite putrid. I try to stay out of those homes. It would be considered ill mannered if I put on a surgical mouth covering before entering so I just stay home or visit those whose cleaning habits I know. I prefer to visit and/or live in a house that we consider “dirty” to one of those we consider really fantastically clean all the time where the one uses organic real food cleaning products and the other uses chemicalized product. And I do my best to stay out of houses where cleaning people use one vacuum cleaner for all of their clients homes.

There is no reason to use anything for cleaning, eating, cosmeticizing your body except organic foods. A strange concept for many today, but a healthy one for all human beings. The colonizers brought in a new lifestyle – one on which they could make billions and are still pushing that lifestyle even today on the rest of us who are ignorant of our own best interests. We have been sucked into human greed which destroys human life.

In the case of your wood floor, if you have a difficult time finding organic grapeseed oil you can use regular grapeseed oil until you can find the organic kind.

It took quite a long time to clean my wood floors. Hours, in fact. That didn’t bother me because my hands are now soft from using an oil that not only cleans the floor, but leaves my skin better at the end of the job then at the beginning and I know that the next time it will just be a question of wiping the floor with a soft cloth with a little oil on the cloth and we are home free – clean, beautiful, nice looking house and well exercised body.

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Back to the Edmund Petus Bridge

Saturday, November 18th, 2017

by Marceline Donaldson

Something is oddly familiar in this “stand-off: now going on amongst our government officials, politicians, hopefuls and a very oppressed group which Alabama and others are trying desperately to contain and keep in their oppressed state. Even the current Governor of Alabama has come public and done a modernized version of Governor George Wallace’s stand to keep African Americans from voting and therefore from their civil rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution.

When I heard Governor Kay Ivey on television taking her incredibly historical stance, I could not see her face for the imposition of George Wallace’s face over her face and figure on television.

Nothing hurts more than one of your own, standing up in the most self-righteous and arrogant way, selling you into slavery and she did that beautifully. She did not lose her very southern lady-like composure in the process of spouting and spewing evil. Clearly, the Republican Party has maintained its position as “Keepers of the Bigotry” which has long characterized Alabama. Have you thought about or read the story of what happened on the Edmund Petus Bridge? Do you see the parallels? We’ve had the slaughter of the women. It should now be time for the healing oil and who will do the pouring of that oil to heal our sins?

True – other states and areas do the same, but somehow the theatrics in Alabama and its connecting its maintenance of bigotry to a religion with its own theology is unique. We know well this heretical religion. The one which has been developing since slavery and which was used to justify and maintain slavery. We have lived with it in many places across these United States and still are living with its remnants. You know the religion. The one where you went into one of its churches and found you could only sit in the back pews, if you were African American – or you could only sit in the balcony – or you were taken out of the church by the ushers if you were African American because you were not allowed into those particular churches.

They still exist today and you can tell them almost upon entering into their ‘holy’ places. You look on their altar and you see those officiating are almost uniformly white. Maybe a child of color or two, but the adults of color are missing. You hear their sermons and they lack that something you hear in other churches. Their ‘leaders’ are ‘leading’ to gain a foot up in their jobs or chosen vocations. They are doing everything they can to help those like them maintain their facade of being ‘better than’. Those more enlightened heretical churches are doing some of the most foolish things you can imagine, but as you watch, they call those things their ‘holy rituals.’ And it becomes clear after a short time that they are keeping the bigotry and maintaining the image of superiority of the white males of Northern European ancestry – those in their midst and the others spread around the globe. You have to leave that space because what you also see and experience is their meanness when pushed to see and remove the bigotry and heresy they practice. It is time, however, for them and us to do just that!

The blanket has been ripped off. The psychic violence and physical and emotional destructive confrontation on the Edmund Petus Bridge has happened as the current Governor has let the rest of us see and hear her ‘religious’ beliefs, which are indicative of the many in Alabama who she represents – male, female of all stripes and colors. She has made a very clear statement that she prefers her political party with all of its shame and sin to anything else because she knows they will continue in the ways of the vile past and they will continue holding her and others like her up in their belief that they are ‘better than’ everyone in the world not like them. Her very words, however, show clearly that she is not free and equal, she is the governor, but she clearly neither respects her gender nor others around her who are neither white nor of Northern European ancestry.

Governor Ivey today – as did Governor Wallace in yesteryear – has given the green light to the worst kind of evil. She has called her state to shame themselves. She has declared her bigotry and the fact that she is conscious of her bigotry and will continue to practice it because that is what she sees her position as governor calling her to do. She has called her state to let the world know that the citizens of Alabama prefer their bigotry and will maintain it defending themselves against positive change even while exposing their children to the sin of pedophilia, psychic and physical sexual abuse, lying, cheating, which she has depicted as just fine and good and righteous choices if made defending their ‘white is better than’ status and their declared right to dishonor – disrespect – and so much more – those with whom they share this earth if those people are neither ‘white’ nor ‘male with Northern European ancestry’. What lessons those children are learning from their parents.

We are back on the Edmund Petus Bridge. Because of the lessons this current generation learned, while children watching their parents as they cheered for George Wallace and his friends on the bridge using it as their bully pulpit. They watched as some of their adult neighbors brutalized, beat and tried to slaughter African Americans and those supporting them on that Edmund Petus Bridge.

The children were present and silently watching that entire drama and so today we have that generation, all grown up, doing their best to follow in the footsteps of their parents, their friends, their government figures, their politicians. They are going where this evil is leading and, in the end, they will pay the price.

Many of those children have adopted the religion of their parents – who themselves adopted and adapted the religion of the slaveholders and slave owners before them. They have seen their parents and grandparents erect memorials to those who did their best to keep human beings enslaved because they wanted ‘free’ labor and wanted that ‘better than’, ‘white is superior’, white supremacy identity. They saw the KKK in their white sheets and pointy caps circling those lit crosses. They saw African Americans turned away at their city halls in brutal ways when they tried to vote; these children knew the U. S. Constitution was being violated in the process; and they were present in the home where their mothers and aunts and female cousins were treated as second class citizens; they were present in the rest of society to see those same relatives, all dressed up and play acting to avoid their reality as they were treated as the household servants. They understood who they were and the positions they would take before they reached voting age and they are now taking those positions.

When you sow the wind – you reap the whirlwind.

Alabama is and has been reaping the beginnings of that whirlwind when you look closely and you see it is one of the poorest states in the Union; when you see jobs scarce; when you see children going without; when you see the low level of education throughout the state; when you see the priorities of the politicians and government officials who are absorbed in maintaining their ‘better than’ status at a very high cost to everyone in the state; when you see the corruption overlooked because the ‘official’ is guarding your ‘better than’ identity; when you see all that has been wrought against Alabamians through their keeping their slaveowners religion above all else and crafting a political party which does the actual work the theology of that religion leads them to do.

It is one of the great tragedies of these United States. AND – not to be overlooked is the fact that our current president – Donald J. Trump – is very popular in this state which condones and gives him positive feedback on all of his evil deeds. When you see this state raising up politicians who follow his footsteps as he has followed in the footsteps of Roy Cohn, Joseph McCarthy, Adolph Hitler, Stalin and today Vladimir Putin, as well as the leaders of the mafia organizations around the world.

Sieg Heil Kay Ivey! There were also Jews who sold out other Jews in Nazi Germany and even today there are African Americans selling out other African Americans for what they think will raise them up to the status of ‘almost, but not quite equal to’ – ‘at least not like them’ – ‘different from those others’ – etc.

“Man’s inhumanity to man” – needs a political correctness overlay “We all die and move on out of this earthly sphere – yet we act as though some are better than and their human bodies will not rot. The color of their skin and the kind of genitals they have will preserve them”. Folly of follies are these humans, especially when they try to be ‘better than’. – At that point, the evil starts pouring out of them and their actions conform and are uniformly sinful no matter their money, status, history, education…….

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Tags: African American history, bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, breakfast table talk, Donald Trump, Edmund Petus Bridge, Kay Ivey, politics, Racism, Roy Moore, Sexism
Posted in Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Blog, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Breakfast Table Talk, Confederate States of America, Confederate Statues & Monuments, Confederate Symbols, Donald Trump, Edmund Petus Bridge, Kay Ivey, politics, racism, Roy Moore, sexism, Theology, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Back to the Edmund Petus Bridge

The Personification of Evil

Tuesday, October 31st, 2017

BY: Marceline Donaldson

I heard a sermon a few weeks ago preached by a person who could be called a politician. He tried to recast these current political events as purely political and not evil. I should have been amazed, but I simply wondered why I had chosen that church on that particular day to hear such a message. It was christianity being preached with a small “c”. The kind most of us practice, which allows us to keep silent when we need to speak the truth. to no longer even know what is truth and to obfuscate when we need to speak and act out of the clarity of our convictions. To go along to get along because our sense of moral outrage and correctness has been numbed by our need for that which will not satisfy who we really are……

My biggest disappointments in life have been those times when a clear lack of a clear and sure moral compass, when it was most needed, has been displayed by the society in which I live; those times when I have been taken back to a parallel time – like now – to the times of McCarthyism – which shows we have learned negative lessons from history. We interpret what we see “through a glass darkly”and think we are seeing the new heaven. We seem to need to be “important”; to be “accepted”; to not be pushed out of our position in life that we have achieved by our “striving” and for which we have paid a heavy price. We will sacrifice the very ground on which we stand for those goals.

Remember Joseph McCarthy – remember the Rosenberg’s – remember all of the people whose lives were sacrificed at the same altar that those historical times are now bringing back to us via those who inherited the tools of evil that existed then and are using them today.

I have not been surrounded, most of my life by those society calls murderers, thieves, rapists, liars. I have been surrounded by “strivers”. And now, with Donald Trump as president, it is clear this country is full of such “strivers”. How few have come out to speak truth. How even fewer have called out the evil being constantly pumped into this society. How many could withstand the onslaught that comes from being cut loose from your moorings because you took that one brave moment and spoke truth, -yet some still do. Why would speaking truth cut you off and cause a huge upheaval in your life? Why would it not bring you the status of hero? What it does bring to those with that strong moral compass is very indicative of the moral health of the society in which we live.

When and if you do take a stand in this current society, those who connect to you, who take some of their identity from being your friend, who see you as a part of their group and therefore as a part of them become threatened by you and can only recoup by trying to sink you to show how unlike you they are and how unchanged they are and how they are still willing to lie, cheat, steal, oppress in the name of whoever is in power – and that can even includes members of your family.

Now – today – you have the chance to reform. It is time to come out and condemn bullying – lying – cheating – stealing – oppressing others for your own advantage – in other words, you have a chance today to speak the truth about these United States and about the world in which we live. If you don’t, that world will be changed and not for the better.

We elected a man as president of these United States who is a bully. A man who lies, cheats, steals, and who will use whatever he can to be the most powerful person in the world. And when I say “we” – Russia may have manipulated for him to gain more votes and put their strength behind helping him become president of these United States, but millions of plain, ordinary Americans voted for him. And why? Because he promised he would single you out and make you and your kind “better than”? That he would maintain and increase the racism, sexism, homophobia, and all the rest that has existed in these United States for generations? And in return you would turn a blind eye to his robbing you blind because you need that “better than” status more than you need a fair and equitable country in which to live? Because you need to know that the brown-skinned person across the street is less than you? Because you can brag about living in a country which excludes and diminishes those whose religion is different from yours? And on and on and on because that is the only thing Trump has promised you and the only thing he has delivered to you and will continue to deliver to you as long as he is president. He has promised to deliver evil! He has promised to accept you and your contribution to his administration if you engage in evil for his sake! He has made all kinds of promises which all come down to increasing the wealth of the wealthy; increasing the power of the powerful; …………………..(.add your own comments to finish this sentence.)

I was totally appalled at the progress of a part of his entourage. There was the ‘First Lady’, Melania, at a school talking to young impressionable children about “bullying”. And what were they doing? Looking in their laps at pictures of this First Lady – nude and half nude – https://www.bettina-network.com/blog/archives/2572 – prancing around airplanes in practically nothing – lounging on beds in pictures that some sex magazines would not print without blurred spots? I am sure you know the scenario. If you don’t, take a look at the pictures in the above link which were out in public view long before Trump ran for president and which circulated the country during his campaign. And still you voted to bring this family into the White House as role models for your children and mine.

She went into the schools talking about bullying. With what credibility? Was she bringing the issue up before our children so they would understand and avoid such tactics or was she teaching them hypocrisy and how to do one thing – live one kind of life – and come out in the light of day talking another. A woman who lives daily with a bully and has supported him with her words and actions. This is who you wanted talking to your children about the evils of “bullying”? One who used a bully to move herself up to billionaire status and has arrived as First Lady of these United States by marrying and tolerating and promoting a bully while doing whatever she needs to do to keep herself sane? This is your role model who you parade through your schools for your children to see and listen to while they ogle her half-nude pictures?

How the mighty have fallen.

Who was Donald Trump’s mentor – besides his father who clearly was a bigot and was arrested at a KKK demonstration – try reading this New York Times article – https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/21/us/politics/donald-trump-roy-cohn.html

Mentored by Roy Cohn – a notorious and feared New York attorney who was Joseph McCarthy’s right hand man. Who helped to bring much pain and suffering to many in these United States who the McCarthy hearings accused of being “Communist”.- Mr. Trump has now taken one of his mentors tactics and has shown he has no loyalties nor anything approaching a substantial set of foundational ethics by now moving completely to the other side with those same “Communists” apparently having been used to get him elected president of these United States.

It is not accidental that Gorka brought up the Rosenberg’s in his attempt to destroy Hillary Clinton. Destroying the Rosenberg’s and sending them to the electric chair was a part of the tactic that promoted Cohn and his crowd and is the inheritance of Trump and his crowd. If at once you succeed you don’t have to try again you only have to push ahead and move the world into the image that most lets you live like Vladimir Putin, only without the downside Putin now faces. And now comes a reliving of that time, only this time with Trump as saint paul, Cohn in the jesus seat and Gorka and his crowd working to bring in a 2017 form of McCarthyism to project and increase their money and power and the American people allowing all of it to happen as long as their jobs, assets, status as “better than” are safe.

It is time to wake up America and live out your claimed beliefs. Live out your Constitution. Put the quality of life – the equality of all – ability to provide for everyone without having a billionaire crowd growing at the expense of the homeless and others on the margins about to become homeless.

All of the moneys being spent on the foolishness we are now seeing acted out in front of us by White Male Northern European ancestry Americans needs to stop. Oops, not quite. We do have some hangers-on from other groups to disprove that rule – let’s not forget the African American Ben Carson, and others like him. Strivers all!

It is time for the windows and doors of this country to be thrown open and the fresh air of humanity, compassion, equality, love, grace, and all the rest be let in and not be closed off and only allowed to a small and smaller group. The thugs and criminals who keep this country in chains are not who you want in charge.

We need an America whose soil does not grow and support and strengthen such people. I don’t know what happened to them that they pursue such a way of life, but that really does not matter. What matters is their choices in life were evil. The lifestyle that they chose is evil. Their ability to corrupt others is evil. They need to be called out on all of it and removed. The hate they are spewing – the choices they are making ——

It is the personification of evil and different from the sermon I heard a few Sundays ago about labeling this “politics” and not “evil”. It was certainly not a Christian sermon – it was a sermon from the soul of a religion spreading very quickly and calling itself “christianity”. It is the call to follow this god they are promoting as “christ” and ignoring the evil intrinsic to this kind of “politics.” The small letters are not typos – they are intentional.

Stand up and be counted here America. This is your country and you need to take it back and put it in the light. Take it out of the darkness settling on all things American and with that darkness spreading fast. The same group which promoted and supported Jos McCarthy and his brand of anti-communism is around Trump. Their heirs are alive and well and trying to take this country down the same road.

You don’t have much time because one defense Trump has is to start World War III and I have no doubt he is capable and would rather see that happen than to traverse the road he set for himself, which will be hard, painful, a total embarrassment and payment for his past sins in the public and corporate arenas.

We will be in the middle of nuclear warfare without even knowing what happened. You will be standing in the street with your skin turning to mush and your eyes destroyed and your entire body in excruciating pain because when you had the chance to stand in the street for justice – for equality – to be passionate about a political experiment called the American Way you were among the missing. You went about your day as normal, you did not want to be involved. You wanted others to stand up and take the pain of working hard and sacrificing their lives so you could live in peace, harmony and without extreme environmental changes and so your children could grow up and replace the Trumpians and McCarthyism.

How is that not spreading and being a part of the same evil you are seeing played out in the news everyday? Everyone has a part. Choose yours wisely because your day of reckoning is coming also. Remember the story in scripture about the sheep and the goats? Each day you choose which one you are becoming and each day you take on more of the characteristics of your choice. – and at some point it is too late to change and make another choice – you and yours simply will have to live with the choice you make today, no matter how small.

This is not political – this is evil!!!!

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Trump’s Campaign Promises & History

Thursday, July 27th, 2017

by: Marceline Donaldson

We need to take a look at a parallel time in history for these United States. The time of Reconstruction was followed by the dismantling of what the time of Reconstruction wrought. What we are experiencing under Donald J. Trump is that time after Reconstruction of horror, evil, misery under which so many suffered.

It comes under that old adage – if we don’t know and understand history, we will be forced to repeat it. And surely enough that is what we are doing. President Obama brought in an era very much like that time of Reconstruction. He continued the process of eliminating our equivalent of the “black codes” which began to be dismantled under Martin Luther King, Jr’s Civil Rights Movement – only instead of concentrating on African Americans, Obama addressed bigotry across this country amongst far more than just African Americans. His time in office highlighted just how venomous bigotry was in these United States and we all thought it was coming to an end.

After the Obama presidency, we elected a man we knew to be a liar, cheat, etc. etc. Today, we are appalled at what he is doing. Since he was a very public and visible person and since it was very difficult not to have known Donald Trump and his reputation, it is amazing to me that we, the citizens of these United States who elected him president could be surprised, dismayed, etc. etc. about the actions of this man who was so thoroughly known. Who you elect is what you get. There is no miraculous change that occurs. Many in the media talked extensively about the “pivot” that they expected to happen. Where did they get such an idea? Was it from the history that rolled out before them showing that the person elected to office said what he had to say to get elected and once elected he became and started to institute policies far different from those he/she ran on?

We were appalled that President Trump rolled out policies, etc. that he ran on. He let everybody know who he was and what he was going to do.

He also threw in the politicians lies to some folks, claiming he was going to do great things for them – which totally violated his image; what he was saying most of the time; the people around him, those total racists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis and other such folks supporting his candidacy who he clearly embraced and preferred in his rallies which were horrid places to be if you were non-white and non-northern european.

Many believed he would “pivot” and be someone very different when he took office. Only, I wonder if we really believed that or deep down we actually hoped and voted for him because we didn’t want a country where everyone was marching into that nirvana of equality, justice, compassion and Donald Trump looked like the candidate who would make sure that things were put aright which this Obama guy had turned in another direction. Trump promised to undo everything Obama had done as president and he has actively and hurriedly taken that seriously and that part of his campaign promise he is daily implementing.

Instead of a mirror image of Reconstruction, he has brought about the period of time that followed Reconstruction when work went on to bring back the “black codes” and other laws and principles which would bring the country back as close to slavery as possible. In the process we have helped to bring this country into a time of great destruction of many of our fellow citizens. During that time after Reconstruction, justice, equality, compassion were destroyed. Evil, hatred, bigotry, infliction of pain was the order of the day and for the next hundred years we lived under what that period after the Reconstruction brought.

We celebrated the “first” African American elected to Congress after 1960 ignoring the fact that during Reconstruction over 100 African Americans, just out of slavery, were elected to federal, state, county legislatures and served their fellow citizens well.

Trump’s presidency looks a lot like that of Rutherford Hayes, whose term of office started with a disputed election and during which the Chinese were today’s Muslims. The Chinese worked hard to build the railroads, but were treated very poorly and were those selected to keep out of the United States the way Trump has worked to keep Muslims from coming to the United States.

The condition of people was horrid and the gains from Reconstruction which the Radical Republicans gained, particularly for African Americans, were destroyed – mostly by the Democrats.

During all of this time I had family living in Mexico who had everything taken away from them and were treated extremely abusively by United States soldiers when the lines were drawn and a part of Mexico became America: I had family – Choctaw Indians, who were put on the Trail of tears and suffered much: I had family – African Americans who were active in their small town in Alabama – elected to public office there – and finally, as the political climate changed, were stripped of everything and tarred and feathered, put on the railroad track forced to walk to Texas in that condition by the Democrats: I had family who were English, Irish, Italian, Swiss and more who gave up their “white privilege” to marry minorities who had experienced those things.

And today, I am living through the modern version of that terrible time because of the Republicans and Donald Trump and his supporters who are moving very quickly to bring us back to that time after our own modern day Reconstruction.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

Trump, the United States president, who gained office by lying.

Two of his big lies are currently clearly on view:

He promised Iraqi Christians that he would support and protect them and they supported him in large blocks. When he gained office he started deporting them by the hundreds. They have not yet been hauled out of this country because the courts stopped Trump’s deportation of so many. They would have faced a horrible and dangerous life if they had been deported and they still might be.

He promised to support the LGBTQ Community and just recently showed clearly that his ethics are in the gutter and his sense of values none existent to the point of not merely being “political” to gain office, but evil to gain eternal damnation.

And those are just a few of his broken promises which will cause thousands horrendous, broken, desperate lives of which he will know nothing and of which he wants to know nothing. His life is privileged and its continuance as such is his only concern. More power. More money. More glorifying of Donald Trump.

And for this we live, work, worship and die in this country. When will it all change? What are you doing to bring about that change? Or are you doing nothing to help continue things as they are because you see yourselves as benefitting? Life changes in the blink of an eye – your time is coming and soon.

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What is Trump’s “Fake News” about!

Tuesday, May 9th, 2017

by: Marceline Donaldson

The retaliations have started and will probably get worse as time goes on. Anyone taking on Donald Trump is being put on notice by the firing of FBI Director James Comey. This comes after he fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates. What became clear in the hearings as Sally Yates gave a time table of her actions – she was not fired for refusing to go to court filing for a “Muslim ban”. She was fired because she raised up the problems with Flynn and was very clear, articulate and fact backed in what she brought to the White House – which probably also put Trump in the crosshairs because not only did she point out Flynn’s transgressions, but the door opened for us to see that our President is probably an underling working for Vladimir Putin.

National Security Director – Flynn – was fired, but only after the Washington Post came out with the truth about Flynn, almost three weeks after Yates pointed out the problems and Trump was forced to fire someone who was a close associate of Trump’s, was with him on the campaign trail for months and who seems clearly to have been colluding with the Russians, probably with the knowledge and blessings and collusion of Donald Trump. Why else would the three of them – Trump, Flynn, Putin – have talked together after Sally Yates presented her findings to the White House? After which Yates was fired.

For Trump to have had a meeting and telephone call in the White House with Flynn and Putin after Sally Yates brought the Flynn business front and center is beyond my ability to understand how this man was elected president. A meeting and telephone call about what – about what to do about Sally Yates to keep her from exposing all of them? But then I have to remember what my life has been like and the enormous amounts of racism and sexism I have experienced. That was at the hands of American citizens who are probably the people who voted in Donald Trump – afraid that their hegemony over all is being cut down to size where they have to accept mere equality.

But what about all of this business where every place you turn you hear “Fake News.” The term – put out in public by Donald Trump, that has been picked up by everyone else.

During the campaign, Trump treated the main stream media like crap – except for those representing the Fox Channel, who he singled out for praise and whatever positive comments he could throw their way.

What was that about? Was that Trump having watched and read all of the other media and found the Fox Channel and Fox News totally superior to everyone else? No! That does not even begin to describe what this man has been doing.

It is time to put out there what this is exactly about – and the context in which this is happening. Basically one which screams to all of us that Trump has yet to appoint someone to a substantial office who is not ethically challenged. That seems to be his number one criteria. Flynn is certainly an example of that.

What is “Fake News” about – this concept that Donald Trump keeps holding up in front of us?

It is about Donald Trump’s friendship with Rupert Murdoch. Trump is one of Murdoch’s close friends. It is claimed they talk daily. So what has one friend done for another? Trump has used his new power and exposure to market Fox News and the Fox Channel as being superior to all the others. He has put it out there that this is what he watches and everything else is “Fake News”.

The president of the United States helping to market one particular media outlet – making it possible for major increases in the income of his friend Murdoch and Murdoch’s family. Trump is promoting his friends’ business and dissing the rest of the media putting their representatives in “bull pens” – literal pens during his campaign stops and calling on the people at his rallies to join him in saying horrible things about all of the media – except, of course, Fox News and the Fox Channel. It is strong propaganda Trump has spread all over the rest of us until I feel as though we have been dirtied in a way we can’t come clean and wash all of this away. It is the Fouling of America and it is being done by a champ who has spent his life doing this to many, many others.

“Fake News” is actually what Sean Spicer, Donald Trump, Mike Pence and others in their group are constantly trying to force feed the public. Blaming the Flynn fiasco on Obama when they all knew that was not true. Spicer giving a long soliloquy on how Security Clearances come about when he knew very well what he was saying was a lie. Trump did not vet Flynn – yet claimed he didn’t have to because Obama had just given Flynn the Security Clearance he needed. In fact, however, Obama had fired Flynn – advised Trump personally not to hire him because of the problems now surfacing, and had not given Flynn any Security Clearance. In fact, Flynn was working as head of the NSC without the Security Clearance he needed because Trump allowed him to do that. Given Flynn’s background and activities he probably could not have gotten the necessary Security Clearance so this smoke screen is thrown up so the general public cannot see how this President Trump is flouting all the laws and procedures put into place to keep this country operating on a fairly high and safe level

The terrorist threat to these United States does not come from the Muslims – it comes from Donald Trump who is doing everything he can to ignore the Constitution of the United States – to destroy everything we hold dear as he tries to turn it all into gold for himself and his friends and who seems to be trying to establish himself as a sick and evil dictator.

What amazes me, but shouldn’t, is how all of the men around Trump – and all of the men at Fox are being knocked off one at a time as they are called out for their clear and ugly sexual abuse against women, among other vile mean spirited ways of being. All defended by Donald Trump, who himself should be in jail for his self-admitted sexual abuse of women.

“Fake News” is necessary as a campaign so actual news is either not printed or not believed by Trump supporters who don’t want to believe their idol has clay shoes. He is, after all, the one keeping them above the unwashed minorities of the world.

We have this president who is illegitimate – a pathological liar – a seeker after money, influence, power for himself and his friends – who is going to strip the United States of every shred of decency, good ethical base, make it the laughing stock of the world, and destroy its middle – class citizens as substantially as possible so that it will take decades for them to recover.

To look at the way Trump has constantly thrown around the concept of “Fake News” and used that to promote his friend – Rupert Murdoch’s business and to attempt to destroy all other media outlets is beyond belief.

One shock after another and each one on a lower plane than the last one. When you think Trump can’t go any lower he lets you know there is still space for him to go because with his clear lack of any kind of human decency there is no bottom for him to hit.

A step lower would be to replace Comey as Head of the FBI with Bannon or one of Jess Sessions friends. They do make a clearly compatible couple. As do their associates in the Republican Party. It is amazing to see the lack of an ethical base and just an inability to adhere to basic human decency in today’s Republican Party – once the Party of Lincoln and now the party of Trump – Nixon – Reagan – all who had to face serious criminal charges coming from how they were being President and what they were doing.

Why he is not being stopped is my question! I know he will never be assassinated because the people who do that are all in his camp.

Why we are allowing this man to ruin everything we have all worked so hard for is my ultimate question today. What are you doing to help restore this country to some semblance of a country where mafia ethics are not the rule of the day and people are not meeting behind closed doors to figure out how to turn this country away from its democratic/republic historical founding towards a vicious, mean-spirited, grasping, greedy, whore mongering group of white men run amuck turning their bigotry into the normal way of things in this country and at the same time establishing these United States as a totalitarian state run by a greedy, lying, abusive etc. etc. etc.

Am I angry? You better believe it. And you?

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WHO READ THE BLOG IN OCTOBER!

Tuesday, November 1st, 2016

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In October, 2016

37,836 people

came to the Bettina Network Blog

to read what we had to say

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We hope they were not disappointed and what they read added something good to their lives.

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One of our goals is to add to your base of:

Knowledge – Wisdom – Art – Imagination – Music

Good food – Great Entertainment!

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We try to do this

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through Truth Seeking

Good Investigative Journalism

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Sharing with you what is important to those who are members of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community in which your wealth, style, class, race, genealogy, job don’t define you

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We hope to share with you

tools we find and hope you can use to reach

a better understanding of our shared humanity

AND

to help you make ever better decisions about WHO

you are and your CHOICES

as you go through life moving ever closer to

that end time we all face!

How can we live this life graciously,

with elegance, kindness, understanding,

incredible style

AND ESPECIALLY

with love of ourselves

and of all those with whom

we share this Universe!

If you are a member of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community you are able to add your thoughts, your research, your political commentary, your recipe’s, your life advice or whatever you want to say – report on – have fun with – have art to share – a video to share. The possibilities are only limited by your life and your lifestyle. Bettina does, however, control content. She is generous, but won’t give up that control. Not yet, at least!

We may even be open to publishing a few blogs from those who have gone, but have things to say about their afterlife or may have something to say to those they left behind – who knows what will pop up in Bettina Network’s Blog.

Keep reading!

We finally figured out how to make it possible for you to sign up to have the blog delivered to your email box so you don’t miss anything.

A green box will pop-up and all you have to do is fill it in and you will be subscribed to Bettina Network Blog.

We have to give kudos where they belong. We use BOXZILLA to produce those boxes which allow you to subscribe to our Bettina Network Subscriber List. The support they gave us as we tried to do a simple thing was amazing. We are not accustomed to companies on the internet giving service. Selling you something – fine! But not many have follow through where you can call or email for help and get first class help and immediate response. They go all out to make sure you like and can use their product.

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

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How To Make Groundnut (Peanut) Soup – Ghanaian Style

Wednesday, September 7th, 2016

by: Abubakari A. Adams copyright for Abu by Bettina Network

Groundnut Soup:

This is basically what I consider one of the best soups favored by most people in Ghana, and some West African countries. In Ghana some people in fact would not mind eating this soup for Lunch and Supper. The main reason this soup is call groundnut (peanut) soup is obviously because groundnut is the most dominant ingredient in the soup. The ground nut is made in the form of paste just like peanut butter but not as smooth as the commercial peanut butter and definitely with no sugar added or any of the other ingredients that come with this commercial peanut butter, – just the ground nut (the ground peanuts). The soup normally comes in different flavors which is mostly defined by the type of protein supplement used in the soup (type of meat, fish, snails, crab etc.)

Ingredients:

The quantity of ingredients in this recipe can be increased or reduced based on how thick or light you like your soup to be, or how much spice you like in your food.

* Groundnut (Peanut); no sugar just the peanuts (roasted)

* 4 relatively large Tomato

* Hot pepper (use your as much as you think you can handle I would normally use like 1 part pepper to 5 part tomato; 1:5 ratio)

* One large sized Onion

* Garlic (optional)

* Medium sized Ginger

* Salt

* 1 medium sized Garden egg (egg-plant)

* Fish (fresh fish will do but preferably smoked fish gives a better turn out), Meat (fresh meat of choice, most people in Ghana use goat meat) or Crabs. It is okay to use a combination of all three types, unless there are people who don’t eat one or more of the trio.

Tools:

Need at least two good sized saucepans

Wooden spoon or spatula

Chopping board

Knife

Blender

2 sources of fire (number is optional, saves cooking time)

Other tools that you may deem necessary

Process:

There are different processes in cooking the groundnut soup. The process outlined is my preferred method.

* First, do the most obvious of all cooking practice, (clean all the ingredients as needed)

* Put meat, fish or crab into reasonable sized saucepan; add water until it is the same level with the meat, fish or crab; add salt as needed and then put the whole tomatoes, ginger, garlic, garden eggs (egg plant) and pepper on top of the meat, fish or crab.

* Cook the combination under slightly high temperature until the vegetable gets softer or gets cooked.

* Take out all the vegetable (tomatoes, onions, garlics, pepper, ginger and egg-plant) and blend them all together into a light puree.

* Put a reasonable-sized saucepan on medium heat and put the groundnut paste (peanut butter) in the saucepan. Stir, while gradually adding a little water until the color turns dark brown and/or you start to see it getting oily.

NOTE; each time you add water, stir until the water is completely absorbed before adding more water.

* Once the paste gets to what I term as the brown stage or the oil zone, add the vegetable puree to the groundnut paste and keep stirring until you get an almost homogeneous mixture.

* Add the partly cooked meat, fish or crab and the stock, stir and add hot water to get the desired thickness.

* Allow to boil on medium heat until the oil starts to surface. This stage will take about 15 to 20 min. on average.

* Check to make sure the salt is okay and add more if necessary. NOTE: you can always add more salt after it is served

Ed. Note:

Abu is a tremendous young man from Ghana. His area of expertise is Mechanical Engineering and he has a diploma from MIT’s Fab Academy in Digital Fabrication (How to Make Almost Anything). Abu speaks six languages and since he is a world traveler and stays in different countries for extended periods of time, he will probably constantly add other languages to this repertoire. One of Abu’s passions is the FabLab. He has worked with others to set up several and will be on his way to South Africa for the next year to help set up yet another FabLab. Cooking is something Abu loves to do and we hope he will share more of his recipes with Bettina Network’s Blog. As he travels the world and picks up different ways of cooking and sometimes how different cultures use the same ingredients, we know he will not forget us and will send recipes, history and updates on how the FabLabs are developing around the world.

He is a very valued member of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community.

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Melania Trump’s Convention Speech

Tuesday, July 19th, 2016

An amazing speech! It had nothing to do with anything except a hollywood script writer planning a movie of pure fiction.

We watched her come on stage and the greeting by her husband was anything but warm. It looked like – don’t touch me, I am made up and dressed and don’t want you to mess me up. The rest of the evening and speech followed that pattern.

What most amazed us were some of the things she said with a somewhat straight face. For example: She emphasized the need to “pass those lessons on to the many generations to follow, because we want our children in this nation to know that the only limit to your achievements is the strength of your dreams and the willingness to work for them.”

We wondered if her life after she left Communist Slovenia and an upbringing which had nothing to do with a democratic election where you supposedly run on your achievements, ability to accomplish, and more, was an example of what we want to pass down to our children as ‘our’ morals and values. Certainly, the way she ‘achieved’ her goals says more about her and the man she married than anything else. It sets their moral values right up front and center for all to see.

She talked about her mother’s elegance instilling in her a love for fashion, etc. During the time she was on her own and had to make her own way, this is how she did it – acting out her morals and values and love for ‘fashion’. That is not how the fashion models we know live their lives and make their money. She was Donald Trump’s ‘hostess’ on his plane before they married. We hear it took her all of two years, after leaving Slovenia to become a billionaire’s mistress, girl friend, fiancé. We don’t know what to call that relationship before their marriage. It was certainly a time of Donald Trump exploiting a woman’s body and the woman allowing him to do that because her value of herself is on her body. An example for our daughters’ to follow?

Half naked with a box full of jewels on a plane represents what kind of moral value? Selling one’s body and showing the results of that sale?

Supporting your husband and his need to get support from the NRA? Passing these values on to our children? Whatever values her parents gave her – when she had to make it on her own she apparently made it by using her body. – and was it for sale to the highest bidder? And once that happened she could become the volunteer, the person giving to others, working for the needy because that supported her husbands goals and put the family in a better light? Seems to us that those values of her husband have been passed on to his children – especially with a son who, rumor has it, only dated models and in the end married one? Is that teaching your children to value people because of their work, accomplishments, because they are human? Or is that valuing women for what their bodies can do for you? Doesn’t bode well for women’s issues. If her husband is elected president, she would be the first First Lady who earned her kept so blatantly using her body.

Supporting her husbands’ support for the NRA? Showing how women can give their support to the NRA for their husbands benefit?

When a campaign has stolen the theme of a previous campaign and was not able to come up with its own campaign theme – is that how he will be President of the United States? Nothing will be sacred. Whatever Trump needs, he will take from whoever, wherever, for whatever reason he needs to take from others? Like the way his campaign has taken the lives of Blacks by stirring up old prejudices and giving strength to groups who are extreme racists? And extreme religious bigots? Did his daughter marrying an Orthodox Jew account for his spreading such hatred around the country in his campaign speeches and in other ways for Muslims? Is he using divide and conquer to become president? Use the old animosities and pit one group against another. So far he has been able to widen the gap between White and Black; Jew and Muslim; and who knows what groups are next as fodder for his power grab?

These are the values to pass on to your children? Use your body to get what you want? Melania talked about her interest in fashion. We know several models, none of whom earned their money using their bodies in this way! It did help her get a rich husband, however, who puts no value on women except to satisfy his ego and prurient needs.

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The traditional photo of a nude woman on a bear rug is acted out here and destroys everything woman – trying to reach equality in this system based on their brains, accomplishments, etc. instead of the old standard of their body and how they are willing to use their bodies to succeed. These are the lessons Melania Trump brings to young women and young men. This was certainly her way to success and even today, dressed in more clothes which cost a small fortune, her message is – you are an appendage to “your man” and you live your life through him and his life, never on your own standing on your own two feet. Independence is not in the cards.

I can’t believe the Republican Party has stooped so low. It certainly gives a different meaning to their fight against abortion and all their other fights against the equality for women. This will bring the country back pre-1950’s. This is how women advertise who are looking to earn a living in prostitution. If they make it big and find that wealthy male to support them – fine. If not, they will be prostitutes for life.

These photos came from GQ magazine. We put their entire article on Facebook if you are interested in their narrative which went along with the pictures they published. We found more, but these, we felt, gets the message across. Know who you are voting for. You can excuse anything if you want power badly enough. But don’t you think a little honesty, morals, looking at the choices a person makes when they are on their own tells more than anything else about their morals? It certainly says a lot about Donald Trump and what he is interested in from a woman.

I am sure there were none of the Religious Right in the audience at the Republican Convention. Having seen years of what they are about this would be the ultimate hypocrisy. An act equivalent to Pontius Pilate’s washing his hands in that bowl. If there were members of the Religious Right on the floor and out in the country supporting this Trump campaign, they have gone further than Pontius Pilate did because they have not only agreed to turn Hillary Clinton (a devout Christian all of her life – working for justice, equality and for all of us) over to the most scurrilous comments and ugliest campaign in United States history, because they have agreed to help in that effort and are giving their time and money to achieve that goal. At least Pontius Pilate only washed his hands in that bowl and and then he walked away.

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Posted in Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Bettina's Hall of Shame, Breakfast Table Talk, Donald Trump, Fashion, Guest comments, Hillary Clinton, Historical Homes, Kitchen Table Talk, Melania Trump, politics, racism, sexism, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Melania Trump’s Convention Speech

The Marc Jacobs Collection

Wednesday, June 8th, 2016

We had a wonderful guest who had been to the most recent Marc Jacobs show – collection – for resort wear (I think).

She would not write a blog, so we are taking her comments and passing them along.

At breakfast she brought her lap top to show us what is happening in the design world. It was predictable and the most prevalent comment which went along with those watching around the table was – ‘is this clothes-pedophillia?

That stopped me for a moment because I didn’t know what to make of the comment. It was like another comment I was trying to take in and that was about the Washington Post and its new owner trying to take over the world and using his ownership of the Washington Post to control and get rid of the competition. They were both earth shattering comments. So we picked ourselves up off the floor and tried to understand. When the owner of the Washington Post is also the founder of Amazon.com that should be a conflict of interest and it is time for the government to take a hard look at moving to stop this monopoly that Mr. B is trying to put in place. If they don’t it will be too late, because he will be too powerful – if that hasn’t already happened.

Our worlds were certainly splattered into little pieces. What does this all mean?

As we looked at the Marc Jacobs show on the computer – we began to understand. It looked as though the 13 year old models have become the inspiration and the clothes look as though they are walking through their high school dream sequence. Nothing was there for anyone over 15 years old and even the 13 to 15 year olds that, we thought, this collection was obviously reflecting, were stuck in a class that stopped at ‘lower middle’.

Harsh words, but amazingly accurately reflected the opinion around the table.

What more is there to say. The world is changing and many of us are so busy we are sleeping through changes that are life negating.

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

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The ‘Sharing’ Community????

Friday, April 29th, 2016

The first thing we note in that name – which has become attached to several kinds of businesses – is the fact that it is an extreme misnomer. There is nothing “sharing” about that group of businesses. Unless you call the lower to middle classes sharing their small assets and ideas in ways to make the upper entrepreneurial class extremely wealthy, a “Sharing Community.”

The business titans of the next generation will all come from this extremely wealthy group. They take into their rather exclusive club those they have identified as ‘like them’. And we all know our own.

A more accurate name would be the Greedy/ Grasping/ Exclusive and Excluding/ Racist and Sexist Community!

Wow! That sounds angry! – It is most definitely not a happy frame of mind.

Let’s take a look. Is it angry or is it accurate.

The ‘Sharing’ Community is the group of entrepreneurs who have taken a funnel; poured into the top all the assets they could not touch and do not own; taken the lions share of those assets – without buying them or putting upfront any kind of money in exchange for those assets; and have come out with multi-billions of dollars while the people who own the assets being used are given a dream that turns into a nightmare as they look at the fact that only a very few realize that dream. Those that realize the dream are the few used to disprove the rule.

The ‘Sharing Community’ is bringing in racism and classism like no other corporate structure has been able to create, maintain or enforce. They do it by painting pictures of this wonderful society – the beloved society – which will bring us all together in a very loving and sharing way.

Most of the folks, who have had this imitation stardust thrown into their eyes and who cannot see what is in front of them, but subscribe to the mythology, are the ones who will be hurt the most.

Take a look at the companies who have been most exposed by the media. The others won’t be far behind. Not totally exposed, however, because the media realize that while they must tell – at least part of the truth – their owners have to survive and they do that surviving through the advertising dollars of those new “Sharing Community” groups. It would be so easy if we all took on the responsibility of thinking – carefully thinking of what is presented to us so beautifully gift wrapped.

Take Amazon. There have been articles written, exposing the warehouse slavery which happens at Amazon – exposing how they treat their employees – not the ones at the top who are now multi-billionaires; nor the ones in the middle who are multi-millionaires; but the ones at the bottom making all of that possible for those top executives and investors.

Amazon has been talked and written about describing its racism and sexism, but we were too busy dreaming to listen. They have just recently shown clearly, not only their extreme racism but the very arrogant way they assume it is their right to act it out and expect the larger society to not notice and/or to approve. They don’t notice their own racism because it is totally ingrained in their structure and their corporate culture.

In Boston, they announced one day delivery to all except those who live in Roxbury. How is that racist? Roxbury is where most of the African Americans and other minorities live.

They were preceded almost a generation ago by the first company giving you access to the internet with your own personal account. If you were African American and/or other minorities deemed less than by this society you could not get such an internet account. It was set up so that you had to have a credit card to have an internet account and your credit card had to be rated above a certain level. We worked with many minorities who were denied access to the internet. Not until everything was running smoothly and the majority society was very skilled at the internet; saw its possibilities; started building companies to take advantage of the internet were those barriers relaxed – and other internet companies started to join in the picture. And at that point groups took on the job of trying to bring the ‘disadvantaged’ into the fold. Not as equals, but as those less than who didn’t know enough to join this revolution. Now, the rest of us would have to do our ‘nobles oblige’ and work to bring them up to speed, because they couldn’t do it themselves. Not totally up to speed, but just enough to maintain our superiority and show what looks like our compassion.

The story given out was that you had to have this kind of credit card because your monthly fee – which at the time was around $12/month – had to be taken out of your credit card each month. They had to know the money would be there when they automatically withdrew their fee – and other minor embroideries to attempt to justify this racist exclusion. One of the exclusions was – if you were divorced – and female – you had to be one year out of your divorce before you could get an internet account. How quickly we forget.

As we worked with people trying to get an internet account – they offered to pay their fees one year in advance to avoid the ‘guideline’ set up which excluded them – they had no credit card, couldn’t get a credit card, and the few that had credit cards did not have a high enough rating in their cards to qualify – our ‘forgetfulness’ also extends to the role of the credit cards in the continuing oppression structured into this society. That offer of cash or check in advance for one years fees was immediately declined by the company. So much for what the internet provider considered a necessary policy.

If you look closely at the policies and practices of Amazon you will find them riddled with racism and sexism. We are too far away from the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s to think and parallel and see how grossly minorities are treated – and – we are too busy scrambling for something that we feel is important, to stop and take a serious look at what these companies are doing and how they are structuring into our present a more rigid racism and sexism for our children’s generation than that which we have had to face and fight.

Their control will be complete by the time what they are doing is recognized and addressed. Didn’t Amazon feel free enough to eliminate Roxbury from their one day delivery without expecting any blow back from such a policy and without even realizing the racism of the policy? Or did they put the policy in place knowing it would negatively affect African Americans and other minorities in the neighborhood and that was the reason for the policy in the first place, but it went into place anyway because their goal is to benefit their “own” and to eliminate anything they feel might be a ‘danger’ to the development of their business? And, is that ‘danger’ minorities and women?

A corporate structure reflects the times in which it was created and the people who did the creating of the structure. The racism and sexism of the original founders would be intricately incorporated into the structure they put into place. Their fears, their identity, their needs would be very much woven into the structure of what they found. I meant “found” because most of the ideas about which we are discussing were stolen from others without any need to do otherwise. That spirit would be all through their creation. They would take someone else’s idea and add their own racism, sexism, insecurities into what they created and continue to create.

And then there is Airbnb! Found to have racist policies by Harvard Business School Harvard Gazette Article they are still free to exercise them. HBS Article . By the time the rest of us catch up and understand what they have structured, they will have taken us back to the days when African Americans had their own b and b listing of places they could stay because they were closed out completely from the accommodations others could use. This time, the close-out will be complete because it will be hidden and not many will take on the deconstruction necessary to lay that bare.

Once upon a time during the Civil Rights Movement, colleges and universities used a discrete kind of racism and sexism. A way to discriminate without saying we have rejected your application because you are too dark; too non-American; too, etc.

One huge way they put in place to enforce that discrimination was to require a picture with your application.

Those minorities who did not have the tell-tale entries in their application – their name; their address; the schools they went to before applying; etc. would be caught in the net of the picture requirement and the schools could then – and they did – reject the applications based on the recognized basis of racism and sexism rather than allowing the application to go ahead and be considered on its merits. Some colleges and universities didn’t totally reject all minorities, but they had a quota. Once that quota was reached, all others were rejected and the picture requirement made that possible.

Airbnb started without a picture requirement unless you had an African American sounding name or your application to use their services was picked up with something being not quite right. What was that? A possible minority, you say?

To correct that, they have apparently started to require a picture from almost everyone. Does that sound familiar? A policy which does the same thing and allows the same kind of discrimination practiced by colleges and universities a generation ago.

Take a look at other companies which are a part of this ‘sharing community’. Basically, you are allowed to use assets you struggled to acquire for your family, etc. to ‘share’ with others. You use them sometimes and you rent them out to others at other times. What happens through this process? You generally rent them out at a lower rate than an established business offering the same services. The fact that the people in these other businesses have struggled for more than one generation to get their reimbursement up to a fairly decent amount and are still struggling for things like health insurance, etc. means nothing to those renting out their similar assets for less. They are thinking of how rich they are going to become and maybe even be able to buy more than one of the same kind of asset or something similar to expand the services offered and they and their friends are going to walk into the very rich sunset together.

Instead, they find they are increasingly pushed against the wall and deprived of much because the reason the other services cost more begins to push into their lives. The assets experiences wear and tear; they have expenses which were not included in their initial calculation of how much they were going to profit; they gradually start down that slippery slope and lose even that with which they started. What is also enmeshed into this corporate revolution is the all out hunt for and stealing of the ideas and businesses of others, who do not have access to the investors in this Sharing Community. I have met more people whose corporations are viable and struggling who have been swamped and destroyed by the greedy grabbing and stealing of their ideas and their decades of work developing a business which is then stolen and put in place as though it came full blown out of the minds and experiences of those claiming it as a part of the “Sharing Community.” That kind of theft is no less criminal than the kind against which this society has definite criminal laws.

Who is profiting from the use of their assets – the investors in the overarching business which has set itself up to allow this asset use. They are multi-billionaires in record time – like a few years, if that long. Where did all of that money come from? The backs and lives of those who see what is being offered as some pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and the marketing and advertising of the overarching businesses who are very good at painting that picture.

It is time to take a good look at what this society is becoming and how the masses are moving into an indentured servant class while their lives are being taken to make a greedy group wealthy beyond their wildest imaginings. And they are ‘sharing’ this wealth with who? Certainly not the people who made it possible. They are still struggling to just get back to where they were before they took their assets into this conglomeration.

It is time to tell the truth and give correct names to what is around us. “The Community Indulging in Massive Greed”: “The Community using the assets of the masses in the process of using the Masses to Acquire Billions of dollars without Sharing”. “The Community of the Greed which has discovered the way to maintain and grow its outsized Male Ego by insuring the survival of racism and sexism in a virulent form, masked from the society until that society is enmeshed and unable to extricate itself from the tentacles which enslave them and benefit the investors who created what they call “A Sharing Community.”

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Posted in Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina's Box of Shame, Bettina's Hall of Shame, Breakfast Table Talk, Class in America and the World, Guest comments, Kitchen Table Talk, Making Connections, racism, sexism, Uncategorized, Wealth Creation | Comments Off on The ‘Sharing’ Community????

Several responses to “Donald Trump”

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2015

Wow! You call it like it is – may you live long and prosper.
I have been waiting for someone to say why all these folks are claiming America is failing and needs to be ‘restored’ to greatness by someone like Trump. We aren’t failing, a more diverse group of people are now Americans, that is what folks claim as a failure. Keep those other folks out of the top ranks of this country. Keep them as the underbelly so we can pull them out and mistreat them when we need more people to keep our economy from heating up too fast.
Why do you folks always pick on Mr. Trump. I think he is a very nice man who is going to be president one day. And since I believe that I have updated my passport and am trying to decide where I am going until his presidency ends.

4. How come Mr. Trump, who is so against immigrants, married TWO? His marriage most plagued with ugliness and troubles was the one to a born and bred American.

5. How come you said nothing about Mr. Trump’s hair? Everyone is talking about whether it is real or not. No one is talking about how it comes out of a bottle. No one his age has hair that color without help from that bottle of dye.

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Sexism 101 – Father Figure Problems

Monday, September 28th, 2015

One guest brought a problem to the breakfast table.

She was late arriving and most people were ready to leave.

Her agitated state made all of us stay and the resulting conversation, we felt, belonged on your blog.

We deal with sexism in all ways and places. Mostly, we talk and write about it in the workplace because that is where your income and vocation come into play. This breakfast table talk was about sexism in the family. Particularly with daughters who have father issues they don’t think about, recognize, work on or see as anything having to do with them.

Many women – especially those above 30 – have father figure issues and work them out in their lives. Most particularly in their romantic lives and in relationship to their mothers. Have a problematic relationship with your father and your mother gets trashed.

Sexual abuse has come into play now more than ever. In those above 30 it was not the issue it has become today. Men with ego problems work out their issues by using women, usually their wives and their daughters are the ones who suffer.

This woman was trying to talk with her daughters about their choice of male companion – husband, boy friend, fiancé, etc. She noticed that the male companion they chose was always one who was sexually abusive – and – we were not talking about beating or being physically abusive. We were talking about the male who pursued them being their teacher, boss, someone who was over them in a father-like position. The young women were protesting to their mother that she was being “hyper” and didn’t understand, paranoid with a chip on her shoulder, etc.. We thought she understood only too well because her own history reflected the same abuse, only at a time when to marry a male above you was looked upon as your having made quite a “catch”. The woman making that “catch” was looked up to, but in real time, on a day-to-day basis paid a heavy price in her personal life. As she talked we realized she basically hid this side of her life from everyone and presented a great looking marriage to the world. She couldn’t hide it from her children, but they saw her life through a child’s eyes and interpreted it through their own veils – through which she didn’t come out very well.

A woman in that position, so the table conversation went, would probably be very angry most or all of her married life. Basically, because she would not have recognized the sexual abuse she experienced during the courtship process, the marriage and the rearing of family.

Such a spouse needed the ego boost of having made a ‘conquest’ and would expect that ‘conquest’ to be in an inferior place to him. When that didn’t line up with the reality of the relationship, the woman suffered as the man tried constantly to pull the rug out from under anything she did to fulfill her life. She thought he did that even if the cost was to him, her, the marriage and the children. The things she did and contributions she made, if they were not according to her ‘stereotype’ he did not want them to succeed and did what he could to kill all of her initiatives and hard work.

He was her fulfillment and that is what she was limited to. He was her fulfillment according to his judgment and expectations. Whenever she tried to live her life on her own path she would find herself mired in mess. If she hadn’t dealt with what was happening and could or would not look at the reality of her life with this spouse then anger, frustration, explosions would follow. The children, witnessing this anger and those explosions put the blame exactly where it did not belong – on their mother, who then shouldered the negativity of her children and the abuse of her spouse. The abuse was never – in the family being discussed – physical, it was always on a very different, totally accepted level.

With her children now grown and having walked away from her to their father, what does she do!

Her agitation and unhappiness at breakfast, we thought, was coming from the fact that she either hadn’t seen her life as it was and how she had lived it during this marriage or the truth of that marriage was trying to come out and she wasn’t ready to deal with it. She was concentrating on her children and the pain of their rejection.

I reflected on how many older women with children I knew, whose children were now alienated from their mother and all in the bosom of their father. Most of the fathers I knew were divorced and in ‘new’ marriages where their ‘new’ wives were mightily puffing up that male ego.

We did a lot of talking, but didn’t know where to go with this or how to help. We skipped our morning appointments because this topic drew all of us – wonder why it had such a strong draw. I suspect it is something we all have inside and have not allowed to come out because it is not such an accepted, commonly discussed topic. I don’t even know how to write about it for this blog, but feel it is important enough to at least make the attempt.

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Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

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Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, breakfast table talk, Sexism
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Back To Buying Penny Stocks

Tuesday, August 11th, 2015

We’ve been very serious about all kind of civil rights. Along comes a breakfast which brings us back to making money – we hope!

It was a very exciting morning – so much so that I decided to splurge and bought National Bank of Greece stock. Paid $.79/share for it and all because of a breakfast conversation.

We had a wonderful guest from Greece who talked about the situation with the credit and whatever else was happening in Greece. His concern was that the banks had closed and he wasn’t sure for how long or what to do about his travels – cut them short and go home or hold out and hope everything worked itself out so he could continue his quest for knowledge.

A few days later the banks opened – about August 3rd and we were very excited to follow what was happening.

One guest was buying National Bank of Greece stock (NBG) so we followed suit. I remember my lessons on stock buying – buy when things look hopeless, sell when they look as though the stock is going through the roof. This looked sort of hopeless, but not quite, so we bought and so did everyone around the table. What incredible fun and what trouble we could get into if this Bank closes.

Today, the stock is selling at about $ .86/share so we are ahead of the game.

Greece has always had a secret place in my heart so it was great to be able to participate in this. Hopefully, I will become an almost instant millionaire. But since I only bought 2,000 shares, the stock would have to move dramatically for that to happen. As it is, I have a nice little profit and so do my breakfast mates.

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We are a part of Bettina Network Hedge Schools and buying and selling stock is our specialty. We love it, talk about it all the time, buy and sell -sometimes responsibly, but sometimes just for fun. When you visit with us the conversations are always about the stock market and most people come to learn more, to do a bit of trading on their own and to spend a few days with like minded people from all over the world.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

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Response to “Strange Fruit” – Sandra Bland

Saturday, July 25th, 2015

Wow, Cookie! Every time I look away from your blog you have taken it to a new height. What a prophetic voice. Who knew!

Thank you for this blog. It says everything I wanted to say in ways I hadn’t even thought about. The parallel to Billie Holiday singing “Strange Fruit” is awesome.

I don’t think this stuff will ever stop. There are more African Americans being lynched today than in the 1920′ and 1930’s and none of us knows how to stop it. The majority society has given this their blessing, it seems. Their day is coming and it isn’t going to be pleasant.

Keep writing. I will keep reading.

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Sandra Bland – Strange Fruit

Friday, July 24th, 2015

Once upon a time, the “Strange Fruit, hanging from the trees” used to be from trees with green leaves, a trunk and branches growing up from the ground splattered with red.

Today, the “Strange Fruit, hanging from the trees” is hanging from man-made trees with blue reflected all around.

But look! Isn’t that the old white cloth under the blue?

And aren’t those tall pointy white hats pushing out from under the official issued uniform?

Really strange and awful fruit, rapidly spreading the disease of racism all across the country.

Being covered up by fear – that fear keeping those who could act from doing so.

Why! Oh God, Why!

This strange fruit is is Black and female –

the fear is that riots will invade those lovely, green, middle-class communities.

Rather let the strange fruit multiply and just hang there in silence. Much better than to act. The sacrifice of the few for the many.

But doesn’t that spread? isn’t it happening more rapidly?

Terrorism?

Not from the Middle East!

White – Male – Conservative – with strings into the groups of old

The Klan, the Citizens Council, the neoNazi …………………….why bother with a list, you know the names

This isn’t simply racism – this is Racism and Sexism.

Life is becoming ever more strange and silent.

The silent majority is back and in control!

Let the media slip in little bits and pieces to make it sound less awful; less threatening; let us not place blame where it belongs, but obfuscate.

Won’t that protect those of us who count?

Homicide, murder, reduced to a paid vacation, sometimes called Administrative leave – which happens before exoneration.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

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Tags: African American history, bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, breakfast table talk, Making Connections, Racism, Sandra Bland, Sexism
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A Bettina Moving Sale!

Friday, July 17th, 2015

6 Gray Circle – Arlington, MA. 02476 Saturday, July 18, 2015 from 10am-4pm

All Bettina Network Sales accept cash, checks, credit cards (American Express, Visa, MasterCard, Diners Club).

There is a Bettina Network Game of Skill with this moving sale. See the rules of the game at the end of this blog post.

We are working with this family to help move their 92 year old father to assisted living. He has lived in this home for 60 plus years.

He and/or his daughter will be at the sale to talk with anyone who wants to know some history of what they are purchasing.

Always look for the Bettina Flag waving in the breeze to know you are in the right place.

You will find a collection of many different things including: tools which are ancient; sleighs for enjoying winter on a small hill and more.

We will have a pot of organic Bob Marley coffee – this time, featuring “One Love” – for those who would like to spend a few minutes getting into the history of the items in this home and a kitchen table where you can talk comfortably.

This is a great opportunity to buy something and get to know its provenance and/or to begin to put together a provenance for whatever you purchase.

Take part in a game of skill for a beautiful hand-made porcelain village. For only $3 you could take home this village which appraises at $130.00) . All you have to do is write the winning essay on what you would do with such a village. Beautifully made by the mother of this family who died in 1977 and before that, she made several very lovely porcelain pieces. This village, with many houses could be a Christmas village, a Swiss village tucked into a snowy place, houses around or on the side of a train set to enhance the train set-up, or – what are your ideas? The winning essay will be chosen by three independent judges.

beautiful lace curtains for the window that needs a life.

Lovely candle holder and sun figure for over the fireplace or anyplace else you choose.

What a lovely stand to hold your very valuable collection of small items.

Multi-million dollar items have provenances, but so does that lamp you like; the sofa that attracts your attention; the dining room table and chairs which are beautifully made. Don’t cheat your family’s history. When you buy for your home and your estate make sure you have as much information about the items you purchase as possible – no matter how small. You never know what you buy today will be worth tomorrow. Be Prepared.

Very comfortable chair for the desk or computer table with a small handmade table to hold your coffee and sandwich.

All of our invoices – which you take home – have a short story on the back telling you a bit about the family and circumstances of the items you purchase.

AND,

be a part of helping to bring closure to someone who has enjoyed the items you are purchasing. It is nice to know where the items you cherished over your lifetime are going to reside in the future. Of course, that means, if the owner doesn’t like you, we can’t sell you the items you may like and want to buy, no matter how much you are willing to pay.

A Game of Skill*

Rules of the Game

The prize for the winner of this test of skill is the hand-made porcelain village with lights.

The winner will have written the two paragraphs suggesting a use for this village and the winning essay will be the one with the most imaginative suggestion.

The Game of Skill will begin at 10am on Saturday July 18th and end at 4pm on Saturday, July 18th. All who visit the estate sale at 6 Gray Circle, Arlington, MA. are eligible to enter.

The primary consideration in judging the essay will be IMAGINATION - not the English, nor how well or poorly written is the essay. There will be nothing subtracted from the writers score for poor spelling, or poorly constructed sentences.

The cost to enter is $3.00 per entry. One can enter as many times as you have individual essays at $3.00 per entry. There is no lower limit to the number of essays nor is there a limit to themost number of essays that will be accepted. If only one essay is submitted Bettina Network,incwill backstop the cost of the village to the Santora family to the maximum amount of $95.00

You can use the kitchen table on which to write your essay.

Three people - independent judges - will judge the winning essay and the winner will be notified on Sunday May 19, 2015 that they can pick up their newly acquired village.

The Judges are - Ms. Trudi Van Slyck, co-founder of the New School of Music
Mr. Eric Huenneke, organist, First Parish Church in Concord, MA.
Ms. Judy Huenneke, Mary Baker Eddy Library, Archivist.

Any complaints, disagreements, etc. with the Game of Skill will be settled by Marceline Donaldson. May 18, 2015

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Trump, Thurmond, Duke

Saturday, July 11th, 2015

Thank you for the blog on Donald Trump. I am amazed at how edited the press reporting is on this man and his political machinations.

Too many people are calling this a “Republican” phenomenon. I want to remind them that Strom Thurmond, in whose shoes Trump is walking politically and otherwise, was a Democrat – remember the famous Dixiecrates? They found a weak spot in the Republican Party and have been trying to take it over every since only this time with a new name. Don’t they remind you of the Tea Party? When groups disguise themselves, good investigative reporting would put the story out for all of us to read – an accurate version.

Trump’s politics are the politics of the old South which demanded the raising of the confederate flag and kept it flying for some 50 years under a false guise. It is also the politics of the early rise of Hitler. Too stringent for you? Check out your history and see the parallels.

His is the politics of race and it is becoming race that even Thurmond and Duke didn’t promote. His racism is taking an issue with emotional appeal and laced with much bigotry and is using that to promote himself. He may have lost some 500 million, but what is that to a billionaire who is probably going to turn this campaign into lots of money down the road for himself that will make the $500 million look like peanuts.

Hope you title this – Race Politics revisited by Donald Trump.

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Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Blog Response, Donald Trump, Guest Comments, politics, Racism, Reader Feedback, Sexism
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A Bettina Network Foundation, inc. UPDATE

Wednesday, July 1st, 2015

We had a really fantastic weekend. So much so that we are all exhausted and using lineaments to ease the muscle pain.

We packed and moved two town houses and delivered the contents to people who needed what was given.

We were going to do this in one day, but thanks to the UHaul people (see below), we had to do all of this over two days, both Saturday and Sunday, making our work harder, but the rewards were still great.

We had a couple problems which we need to resolve as we move into the future and hope you can help us:

1) We need trucks and moving vans which will make these moves easier and less expensive. On Saturday, our first problem happened. We made reservations to pick up a UHaul Truck between 7:30 and 8:30am Saturday morning. When we arrived at the UHaul place – it was closed and would not be open anytime that day. It caused us untold problems and extra money. So even though we had made reservations to pick up a truck at a particular location, the fact that the location would be closed for the day was not communicated to us when we made and they accepted the reservation. Not a good way to do business. Since we do this on a budget, UHaul cost us for reasons we don’t understand and no apology has been forthcoming.

So after calling around, looking on the internet and trying to make reservations for a truck for an immediate pick-up on a day when lots of people were moving, we finally found a Budget truck. It was too small, but all that was available, so we had to make two trips when one should have been sufficient. So hours were spent – as was extra money – thanks to the UHaul Company.

2) We need volunteers who will help us clean the items given to us before we pack and take them to their new home. That would be a big bonus.

Since we have our own special way of cleaning – those who volunteer will find their hands wonderfully soft, moist and wrinkle free at the end of the day. We don’t use petroleum based products to do any cleaning. Nor do we use anything which is harmful to people or the environment.The products we do use are healthy, good for you, and good for what you are cleaning. To peek into our secrets you have to volunteer to help us with these moves.

Once past the above two problems we were back to normal. Which means the party started and we packed, moved, joked, sang, and generally had a good time together.

It was very rewarding at the end of the day to get together to debrief; talk about what the day was like; how we could improve what we do for the next pick up and delivery; and how we were going to put the word out even further to let people know who we are and how they can join the party. We met to hold this debriefing and conversation and planning session on the concrete in the parking lot of the local Whole Foods Store. Folks just walked around us and went about their business. We thought we should have a sign which read something like “Bettina Network Foundation, inc. Debriefing Meeting”, so those passing by could join us if they had something to say or have their curiosity relieved by reading the sign to give them an idea as to what we were doing – and there were the curious stares. We stopped in the Whole Foods parking lot because that is where we were going food shopping at the end of the meeting. Everyone who volunteered, signed up to join The Black Race so we were all thinking about being extra careful with the food we bought and put into our bodies, because it is one of the things we need to be concerned about as members of this Black Race.

We were all colors, ages and conditions. From age 4 through 84. Some of us could get around, lift heavy objects, move stuff and some of us only walked with a cane, but still made a substantial contribution to the effort. If you are handicapped, we still have jobs you can do. In this move you could sit by the front door and keep the inventory as items went into boxes and/or were carried out the door.

We give those who donate a 501 (c ) 3 letter for their contribution so it is important that we keep track of everything donated and what it is worth. One person inventoried everything and one person kept track of value. Where they weren’t sure, they looked it up on the internet or called a knowledgeable friend for input. We keep a wheel chair, a walker and other such things close by in case of need. Although we had to keep a couple of the able bodied people out of the wheel chair.

What was most rewarding was the feeling we were left with – that we reached out to other human beings, like ourselves, who needed a boost to live a little more graciously and we were glowing because we had just come back with the knowledge that our work was appreciated, both by those who gave and by those who received.

3) Going into the future, we need volunteers who will go before us, to the homes we have researched and selected as those we would minister to that day, and help the families get ready to receive these additions to their lives. The volunteers need to be – Designers who can help arrange things with the families input and guidance as to their lifestyles; people willing to help the families clean their homes and organize what they have; future planners who will work with the families on how to best use the items being delivered to them, how to take care of what they have and what they will receive; and those who will talk with the families going forward on what they can do to give back and help others over the next several weeks. We also need those who can bring back to us what else the families need so we can organize the next move incorporating those families once again, if the next house turns up something they can use.

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This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

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Martin Luther King Day at Bettina’s

Tuesday, January 20th, 2015

Hate murdered a man, at 39 years of age, who preached love.

It has been amazing and humbling to watch the progress of the Martin Luther King holiday over the years. We watched from the beginning, when there was much conflict, confrontation, opposition, loud voices of angry protest at the very idea that such a man, with his history and achievements should be honored. We watched until today when the determination and love of those who were going to make sure Martin and the work of the Black Civil Rights movement was recognized. This 2015 year we celebrated and recognized a man and a movement with time out of school for our children, to the closing of banks, the post office and some of our corporations. To get even this far, has been a long, hard, painful, but very rewarding journey for many.

How do we treat greatness when discovered or suspected in African Americans?

We attended and participated in events which recognized Martin Luther King and the movement of which he was one of the leaders. The events, their venues, the people participating were a cross section – not only of America – but across parts of the world where the work of the Civil Rights Movement was remembered.

There was much “breakfast table talk” about the history which brought us to this day. We hope it continues throughout the year. I thought we would share some of that conversation with you:

“We had a fantastic breakfast – I would have to call it a ‘breakfast seminar.’ Only one person at the table had been through the Civil Rights Movement which created this holiday. The rest of us were either not yet born or were on the other side. I was one of those on the other side at the time because, to me, what was happening with the protests, the disruptions, the dogs, the hoses aimed at the hurting of even young children was something I couldn’t abide. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with life the way we were living it. My point of view was not that of those who were willing to die for their freedom and were looking to the future at their children’s future, but of someone whose life was being disrupted. Not seriously disrupted, but enough to be inconvenienced and I just wanted it to stop and things to go back to the way they were. I don’t know when God took hold of me to shake me up and to shake those attitudes out of my life, but somehow it happened and I am now a part of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations. My grey hair can be seen among all of those young people and I hope somehow, even though it is a very little and very late, my efforts will matter to those who come behind me.”

Are you listening out there in Simi Valley? How diverse is your neighborhood!

WOW!

“What a history lesson! I remember studying the Civil Rights Movement in school. We learned about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and what that time was all about, but I had never talked to someone who was a part of that history before. This was a very different perspective. I think of history as being about the study of dead people and past times. Here I was in the middle of a conversation with someone who lived that history and those past times are still with us today. I have never been a part of a demonstration of any kind. Never talked to anyone who had. Didn’t intend to talk to anyone who was a part of something like that and here I was in the middle of breakfast deep into a conversation that changed my life. Thank you to my breakfast companions for putting up with me. My responses must have been horrible to you, yet you were so kind – well almost kind, after you got over the shock of my being at the breakfast table. I don’t know what I expected, but certainly not what happened. I have never even thought twice about the Martin Luther King holiday. No different from all those other holidays I don’t celebrate. Maybe it is the newness of this one – with the pain still being felt by those who experienced the events which led up to this being important enough to remember once a year. This is, however, a holiday I am bringing back to my family to celebrate every year by learning something new about that time in history and by trying to be a little better about dealing with my prejudices which have caused so many people pain. But – is ‘celebrate’ really what I want to say. I almost feel as though we should all be in sack cloth and ashes for what we’ve done, but ‘celebrate’ is what I feel.”

A truth the world needs to hear! From the religious aristocrats to the homeless on our streets, none of us is immune from this need! To be accepted by proving that we can discriminate against our brothers and sisters just as good as the next person.

A truth the world needs to hear! From the world’s elite, the corporate billionaires, the religious aristocrats, the homeless on our streets, no one is immune from the need to be silent so we can be accepted. “I am sorry, but I can’t get involved. Only when my earthly masters signal their approval.”

“A small group of us (women all) get together every year on Martin Luther King day to try to continue to work through our conflicting thoughts about the Black Civil Rights Movement. It was a difficult time for us. Women – who were discriminated against, not only by the wider society, but also by the Black Civil Rights Movement. It was very male oriented and some, in the movement, felt embarrassed if women were perceived as being in any leadership position. We withdrew, but still supported what was happening with our money, by marching and by being a part of. At the same time, we gathered together to fight for the equality of women and here was an example where those discriminated against were discriminating against us. That is so the human condition! Flawed, full of sin, dragging our own history and almost blind to that of others. Our time together, each year, is to try to reconcile and acknowledge our being human and to root out our separateness to be able to embrace everyone and not feel victimized as we work with those also fighting for their freedom in a society which seems to need to have a group on top and a group less than and which needs to manage and continue their being on top by playing one ‘less than’ group against another.”

“I love Bettina’s. It is a safe place to be able to express whatever and you never know who is going to be at breakfast. May you all live long and prosper.”

Ed Note: We had a lot more expressions of breakfast at Bettina’s on Martin Luther King Day. We shared just a few. The places where people came from, knowing the history of King and the Movement amazed even us. We could put this all together in a book, but we will stop here. Hope this gives more meaning to your day and information to your life.

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Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

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Tags: African American history, bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Information, breakfast table talk, Martin Luther King, Racism
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In October, 2016

37,836 people

came to the Bettina Network Blog

to read what we had to say

We hope they were not disappointed and what they read added something good to their lives.

One of our goals is to add to your base of:

Knowledge – Wisdom – Art – Imagination – Music

Good food – Great Entertainment!

We try to do this

through Truth Seeking

Good Investigative Journalism

Sharing with you what is important to those who are members of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community in which your wealth, style, class, race, genealogy, job don’t define you

We hope to share with you

tools we find and hope you can use to reach

a better understanding of our shared humanity

AND

to help you make ever better decisions about WHO

you are and your CHOICES

as you go through life moving ever closer to

that end time we all face!

How can we live this life graciously,

with elegance, kindness, understanding,

incredible style

AND ESPECIALLY

with love of ourselves

and of all those with whom

we share this Universe!

We may even be open to publishing a few blogs from those who have gone, but have things to say about their afterlife or may have something to say to those they left behind – who knows what will pop up in Bettina Network’s Blog.

Keep reading!

We finally figured out how to make it possible for you to sign up to have the blog delivered to your email box so you don’t miss anything.

Groundnut Soup:

Ingredients:

Tools:

Process:

A Game of Skill*

Rules of the Game

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