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Bettina Network Foundation, inc. announces the addition of a project which is sorely needed in this world!

Sunday, February 13th, 2022

                                                        Much has been made of the push to pass the Voting Rights Bill.  We think a larger push needs to be made over real estate and over how venture capitalists have used their money and other resources to infect this society with extreme racism.

The issue in voting rights centers around redistricting.  This is the work which many take on to make sure their group has the edge over another group in voting before anyone shows up to vote.         

If we work to remove the core – the root – the life of White Nationalism, maybe we can take away the sustenance of the extreme bigotry we are facing which is today and has always infected the right of many Americans to vote. 

We need to look at this in two parts: Real Estate and Venture Capitalists. Those are the two parts which make up this project:

Real Estate – Part One of the Project.

We are asking real estate companies to sign a pledge that they will make their listings known to all. Today, listings are known in particular stratified segregated communities consisting of whites or blacks or browns, or etc.

When one looks at this society let us look at white neighborhoods . They was created as the structure in which we all live because such areas lead to white schools – white churches white friendship groups – white social clubs, substantial futures and opportunities for white children living in these neighborhoods.  

They are the living arrangements in these United States where an investment in real estate – even your private home – would today be worth 100 to 500% more than what you invested.  Those are, of course, white-Americanized -Northern-European neighborhoods where everything is kept under tight control. Banks have redlined; racism prevails; neighbors make it difficult to impossible for non-whites to live in those neighborhoods and so much more. Real estate brokers help to institutionalize this living arrangement as they pay attention to some, ignore others, choose which leads to follow and which to ignore.

In other neighborhoods we may see some appreciation in value, but not of the magnitude described above.  A modest increase.  

And then there are the African American neighborhoods where your home may only be worth a fraction of what you paid even when other homes, sometimes within a few blocks of your home or other real estate, are sky rocketing.    Mostly, however, in the minority neighborhoods the value of homes goes down from when you first purchased.

Going along with that,  schools are guaranteed, in the white northern european neighborhoods, to provide the children of those living in those neighborhoods with a very good education in beautiful buildings equipped with as much as can be put into those buildings.  Even in 2022 you will not receive mortgages to purchase homes in these Americanized-Northern-European neighborhoods. If you do slip through there are ways this society uses to make sure such people are moved out of those neighborhoods and generally in some very crude ways.

As a society, we have spent blood, sweat, tears and tons of money to maintain this structure and it is way past the time to dismantle it.  

We passed a voting rights bill decades ago, which today has been almost completely dismantled needing another such effort.  If your effort is spent working at the core of the problem  your time and resources will result in positive results beneficial to the entire society – including those trying to make sure it remains white and your results will be much longer lasting.

There are neighborhoods in these United States where an investment in real estate – even your private home – would today be worth 100 to 500% more than what you invested.  Those are, of course, white-Northern-European neighborhoods which patrol their neighborhoods making sure only those like them are allowed to purchase homes.

In other neighborhoods we may see some appreciation in value, but not of the magnitude described above.  A modest increase.  And then there are the African American neighborhoods where your home may only be worth a fraction of what you paid even when other homes, sometimes within a few blocks of your home or other real estate, are sky rocketing.   

As a society, we have spent blood, sweat, tears and tons of money to maintain this structure and it is way past the time to dismantle it.   One reason we have spent so much of ourselves maintaining this structure, one important reason, is power and control. When where a person lives is institutionalized to bring about political control and to dictate part of their ability to earn a substantial living and denigrate others living in lesser neighborhoods – that is the ultimate.

We passed a voting rights bill decades ago, which today has been almost completely dismantled needing another such effort.  If your effort is spent at the core of the problem  your time and resources will result in positive results more beneficial to the entire society – including those trying to make sure it remains white and your results will be much longer lasting.

 We are further asking real estate companies to advertise more broadly. Media is ghettoized so their outlets will have to step out and step up to the challenge of making sure their real estate listings are seen across the entire spectrum of race, creed, color, culture, religious, sexual preference and so much more.

This will put realtors on the front line of change. That is as it should be since their ancestors – those who went before – were on that front line making sure neighborhoods were strictly segregated. The advantage the realtors will have will come from their businesses appreciating dramatically and they benefitting personally and through their businesses.

We are asking the media to step up and step out. Different media outlets cater to very different groups of people.  We are asking the media to become adept at making their real estate listings known across the board.  Initially, that might be a problem.  Lack of know-how will make the first steps fraught with distress, upheaval and more.  Why continue?  Over time that will be an advantage to bring in more commissions to the realtors as their results will be judged by new criteria. And to bring in more income across the board to the media.

We are asking civil rights groups to add a real estate component to what they do.

Once upon a time civil rights groups worked in real estate areas. They brought suit against particular real estate owners for not selling nor renting to minorities. That has either disappeared or taken a back seat to other priorities and we can see the results as equality in voting has taken a dive and redistricting is coming up with no thought except that it will create and maintain separatism to produce the political power and control needed.

We will support those who take on living in neighborhoods which just might be hostile to them so the people making that move are supported.  We will support whites, blacks, latinx, asians, whoever needs that support.

Our research has shown some unbelievably imaginative and evil structures in place to maintain the racial, cultural, religious, etc. separation of people in these United States. We have uncovered several people who have been fired when they moved into the wrong neighborhood. It took a bit to discover that because no one thinks their firing has come from their choice of housing. We have seen people whose jobs were capped and downward pressure put on them so they have to move into ‘lesser’ neighborhoods.

We will develop programs to get this going to make sure we are able to break down the tall thick walls created from our need to be better than which separates us and makes us see the faults in others without seeing the part we played in creating those fault lines.

We do not want to make us one people, but to make sure we are well represented in many communities which  have been closed for generations.

We will be in touch with banks and other lending institutions to make sure they get the message and the “redlining”  and other forms of discrimination stops.  Financial Institutions have been very imaginative in how they attempt to tear down someone to force them out of a particular neighborhood. Our president, Marceline Donaldson, experienced heavy racism from her bank when one of the many things they did was to refuse to send her monthly statements of her account for over two years, in spite of many phone calls to the bank. The answer was always – “when you send us a new address we will restart your statements.” Her statements were not restarted until she went to the Banking Commission and then it still took time. These kinds of institutional racist activities are today alive and well, living in most American cities growing fat on the support such receives.  Which bank? Chase Bank in Boston, MA.

Those working within banks and other institutions are quite imaginative about how they go about such bigoted behavior. It is what they bring into the bank when they are hired from how they were raised, schooled, learned at their particular religious institutions and so much more. It becomes lethal when the bank accepts and defends such behavior. That is when it becomes institutional racism.

We will support the institutions which want to see all of this change and we will publicize and in many other ways make sure the institutions which continue to support the separation of people into pens based on color, race, religions etc. feel the ire of those trying to bring our lives together in more positive ways.

To make clear – We are not trying to bring about a society in which we are all the same.  We are trying to highlight and bring together actual “diversity” in our living locations, our living styles, our different cultures and religions so we can live better lives than we have been able to in the past.  

We and our ancestors – no matter who – have paid high prices to maintain this exclusivity based on color, race, religion, sexual orientation, culture and so much more.

It is time to acknowledge the roots of such and to pull up those roots replacing them with much better. Not only do we do this where we live, but we also do it where we eat, what we eat, where we worship, the names and trappings of the God we worship or the fact that we don’t believe in any God. Ever stood at the door of an elegant restaurant with a reservation watching others come in and be seated without reservations while you still stood? In elegant, northern, supposedly none bigoted locations?

The second part of this will be dealing with the bigotry in the billionaire/millionaire classes. We will especially look at those who are funding the bigotry we are seeing grow hugely. We will be looking at the Venture Capitalists and such groups who have used their assets to change this society into one which is becoming a more fascist – racist – sexist society, which they control and in some instances where they are attempting to create new facets to this society where their control-over is substantial .

We will be especially looking at this group to attempt to help rectify and return to others what they have stolen as these Venture Capitalists elbowed each other to steal the ideas and hard work of entrepreneurs developing great ideas into the billionaire business categories. These entrepreneurs were stopped because the Venture Capitalist groups wanted to fund the businesses, but not the people who developed them so the VC group resorted to theft. This kind of theft has been going on in these United States – with no stopping them – for decades. The numbers of people negatively affected are in the thousands. We have been researching and have discovered the beginnings of many such stolen businesses which today are into the top financial categories and which had their beginnings in the minority/female communities.

Join us.  You can join the Bettina Network Foundation, inc. by indicating your interest in board membership; involvement in different projects set up to bring about our goals; other committee grouping; and/or you can subscribe to Bettina Network Journal to keep up with what we are doing, thinking, achieving to keep this channel open for another day.

You can contribute money which is tax deductible – we are a 501(c)3 organization – you can give of your time to help others as we find those who ‘but for…’   Or let us know what other ways you feel your talents can be used.

Don’t let your geographical location stop you. We meet and work in different locations and we communicate and meet often by Zoom. (and/or a similar communication facilitator.)

Call us if you have suggestions, questions, or want to explore joining/working with us.

AND – please note the other projects we started which are moving ahead very successfully. They will still be a part of our work load. If you are more interested in working with one of these, please let us know.

Hopeful for the future

Marceline Donaldson, president Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett, vice president

Bettina Network Foundation, inc.

P. O. Box 380585

Cambridge, MA. 02238

bettinanetwork@comcast.net

617 497 9166

Keep in touch with a great community of people through Bettina’s Blog < www.bettinanetworkblog.com>/

Bettina Network Foundation, inc. and the elderly!

Friday, December 4th, 2020

As many of you know, we have been through some horrifying times over the past few months.

What we learned is that the elderly are at risk in this society and many are being exploited with their assets, freedom, health and more increasingly attacked and stripped away for the benefit of others.

We are adding “Project Old Age” to what the Foundation is doing and hope you will support our efforts. Of all our projects, this one will most assuredly touch your life because we all, finally, move into Old Age.

The project which took a lot of time, money and other resources is coming to an end. The Harriet Tubman Project. We hope you will sign the petition which we are sending to President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris telling them about our efforts and all of those who helped and asking them to re-start and bring to completion having the image of Harriet Tubman printed on the next print-run of the $20 bill.

It was, after all President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden who started this effort and brought it almost to completion. When they left office in 2016 they left everything needed for the next printing of the $20 bill to be one with the image of Harriet Tubman replacing Andrew Jackson.

That was scheduled to happen, with even the printing plates all done and waiting to be used, at the very beginning of Donald Trump’s time as president. However, Trump canceled that printing and was very clear there would be a woman on the currency one of these days, but it would not be someone like her.

All of that means the effort we put into the Tubman Project will now go into “Project Old Age.”

It has so many paths to take:

  1. We were horrified to discover how easy it is to have the police pick up a citizen of the United States and shove him or her into the psych ward for no reason – except their assets look good and they are moving ahead with civil rights activities that some folks think need to be stopped – or some other personal or civil rights reason.

2. In addition, we discovered that many taxing areas – like cities which tax real estate – made a lot of noise and took credit for helping the elderly stay in their homes. They passed laws making it possible for people over 65, or in some cases over 70 or over 75 to be able to lien their real estate taxes to their property – paying interest, of course.

That has become a joke. The cities have almost no one who has been able to take advantage of that possibility. Why? Because working with banks, the bank refuse to allow such and the city, working with the banks, will obfuscate and confuse to make sure that such a lien process does not happen. Especially if the property is one developers want to buy; or the person is not wanted in the neighborhood for race or other reasons; or fifty other reasons we are uncovering.

3. Elder and Protective Services are also very problematical, being used to destroy, incarcerate, abuse and do much more and worse to the elderly they are supposed to be protecting. People are beginning to call us with problems that are horrifying. Elderly forcibly taken out of their homes for no reason and usually by the police with defective instruments. When they have no protection from these “Protective Services” they are shoved into nursing homes and there – under constraints – end their lives. They just disappear. These days they become a part of the statistic of some 40% of the people dying from COVID-19 are dying in nursing homes. Our experience is that the elderly are placed in nursing homes – even ones already under quarantine, insuring that their lives will be at risk.

We could go on, but we want you to know what this “Project Old Age” is about because it will take in all kinds of problems and sub-projects. It seems to be where society is focusing. Why? Seems to us because with the elderly that is where a very large percentage of assets have always been and because it is easy to get out one’s racism, sexism, and more against families and look “legitimate” in the process. Destroy the assets of the elderly in a new immigrant family and the next generation does not have as great a chance at success as they would if the sacrifices of their parents and grandparents were to come to fruition in their generation helping them through the education and other needs we require as a society for many to move up.

We had no idea what was waiting for all of us out there as we move into “old age”. We are asking that you take another look. Think carefully over our requests and information as all of this unfolds and work with us to rectify and block and eliminate all of these problems so our old age comes peacefully and we can enjoy our last years instead of having to go through what so many have worked hard for and don’t get to experience because others decided to steal, destroy, oppress, and more those reaching the end of their lives.

And lets look at assets with a different definition. When you become elderly – assets include insurance, etc.

JOIN US! It is becoming one of the most meaningful things we have done and we intend to put as many resources into this as possible.

It is a formmula  for newly forming Guardianship Corporations to drain the assets of the elderly.  They were mostly interested in Jews – it was a way to make sure the assets of elderly Jewish families would not go to the next generation – making sure their families would not be able to accomplish as much in life as would be possible if they had what in many cases has amounted to millions of dollars.  

It is bizaar, but it is also life ending prematurely.  We think this is a criminal conspiracy.  They isolate – medicate – liquidate everything you own.

It is an issue where you will find extreme right wing Republicans taking it on as well as extreme left wing Democrats because families of all political persuasions are negatively affected.  Not only are they moving showing their anti-semitism, but they are also moving showing they are not respectors of political parties and have a sharp eye out for minorities – all minorities, African Americans, Latinx, LGBTQ, Muslims, etc..

To go along with the above we are pulling together a “Legal Defense and Education fund for the Elderly.”  We are starting it under Bettina Network Foundation, inc. and will hopefully be able to move it into its own non-profit soonest.  

We are looking for attorneys who want to affiliate with this Elderly Fund and are willing to take cases; do research, etc..  Local Massachusetts attorneys, but also attorneys  across the country.  

I guess I am following family history – my grandfather worked with Thurgood Marshall – Jack Greenberg and others to found the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.  I have pictures from way back in the 1940’s. How different a society we would be if the creation of the NAACP Legal and Educational Defense Fund had not happened.

Hopefully, what we leave in place will be an organization that works with the elderly on these legal issues.  Having people picked up by the police the way Robert was and illegally so because those doing the “incarcerating” have been to Court without the other side present or knowing anything about the “emergency hearing” making sure the case was set in place before anyone on the other side even knew there was a case. The elderly are defeated from day one and don’t know that because the papers so filed are either impounded or under seal.  A couple cases we found the people had no idea how what happened to them got started and defended against the wrong thing because they were led to believe something which was not true. We found motions from attorneys like the one filed in Roberts name as though Robert was filing it when Robert knew nothing about the motion, did not know there was anything in court about him, had not been notified that the Court had appointed an attorney to represent him. How could that be attorney representation when no one knew on Robert Bennett’s side about such an appointment and the person appointed and the Court appointment came from Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services – so they then had attorneys representing them on both sides of the issue.

The state is implicated because the claim of “indigent” opens the state pocket books so they can be picked to be able to facilitate what we strongly believe and everything we find backs up our belief that this is a “criminal conspiracy.”

The police were and usually are involved on the wrong side of these issues. In Robert’s case they forced him out of his home and into a psych ward with a defective instrument. One signed by a psychiatrist testifying to the fact that she had never met Robert, knew nothing about him, had never examined him, had never been to his home which she described as “unsafe” and yet out of the blue and violating all of the rules and regulations of Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services she signed out a Section 12 to have him picked up by the police.

The proof of the defectiveness of the instrument the police were given and used is proven by the fact that the hospital sent Robert home with no problems found, no reason for him to have been forced into the psych ward in the first place. That kind of proof after the fact followed through in everything that happened to Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett and what happened to him turns out to be a pattern used to do the same thing to other elderly people who have something the people sending out the police want and which they move to get through these defective legal means. And on from bad to worse.

So far, we have been blessed with many people cooperating and working with us. We owe a huge thank you and gratitude to the person who put legal papers through our mail slot which showed us what was really happening with Robert and we were able to break that case and now have what we need to file a substantial law suit against all involved.  

Work with us – let us know the problems – send attorneys to affiliate with this new Legal and Educational Fund for the Elderly.

Marceline Donaldson, president

Bettina Network Foundation, inc.

617 497 9166

Come to Jesus! But which one?

Friday, December 7th, 2018

Several times a year I face this conversation.  It comes from living in a diverse community with friends, colleagues, family and acquaintances who question Christianity – especially today with Donald Trump being the hero and the one “evangelical christians” glorify – all in the name of Jesus – or are they talking about ‘jesus’.

It came up when Roy Moore from Alabama was running for office and pushing out for all to see, hear and hopefully believe – his evangelical christianity.  He used his form of this ‘christianity’ to claim he could not have done all the things folks claimed he did because he was a Christian.  He believed in Christ.  He loved Jesus – and on and on it goes.  Problem with that was, I was raised a Christian all of my life and I didn’t recognize anything he said or did as being Christian – let lets put him in the ‘christian’ and ‘jesus’ religion.  And so, I dispensed with that problem – yet again.

In the last undecided Congressional race, watching the people involved comment – the Republican chair talking to Chris Hayes on MSNBC  claimed he did not believe Republican Mark Harris would be involved in the voter fraud scandal in North Carolina because he loved Jesus and wouldn’t do anything against that.  Once again – he loved which one – Jesus or ‘jesus’?

It looks very much as though his choice was ‘jesus’.  Jesus got pushed out the door so he couldn’t witness the scandal.  He will be brought back in when all of that voter fraud stuff is over.

In these United States we have two religions which call themselves “Christian” – because they claim to be followers and believers in “Christ.” That has been true for generations – way back to slavery.  How many slave owners went to Church on Sunday and professed Christ and promised to follow Christs’ teachings only to return home and beat their slaves for one reason or another feeling perfectly justified in the doing and seeing no conflict?

I’ve tried to make peace with this by putting the bad guy “evangelical christians” in small letters along with the “jesus” and “christ” they claim.  But that is not quite satisfying.  That still lets me get upset with all of those ‘christians’ professing their ‘jesus’ because it is too close to mine and I have to answer to others who don’t understand the differences.  I have to justify my Christianity too many times because of them.

Having been raised in the A.M.E, the Congregational and Episcopal Churches all at the same time, with a heavy dose of Catholicism having lived in New Orleans and Downtown at that,  I guess some conflict seems normal to me. (The Intellectuals and the Protestants lived Uptown – the Catholics, the artists, a conglomeration of everyone else lived Downtown).

The conflict between these two totally separate religions, which go by the same name, is way beyond normal and they certainly espouse totally opposite beliefs and theologies.

So maybe its time for a name change!

I remember Jimmy Carter’s dilemma when he started his campaign for President of the United States.  It was noted and reported world wide, but after a time left in the dust.

James Carter was a very strong, believing ‘christian’.  It defined his life, his work, his relationships and everything about his life.

Problem with that was the Church he attended and where he taught Sunday School and (I think) served as an usher was very segregated.  That accorded with his then ‘christian’ religion, but not with the public’s thoughts about Christianity when they heard his religious beliefs discussed.   If Blacks came at all to his Church they had to sit in the back row and mostly they clearly understood they were not welcome.

It was quite something in this country when James Carter realized and rejected that ‘christianity’ and left the Church in which he was raised because of its overt racism – common across the country in such ‘christian’ churches.  He left one religion – or religious denomination – for another.  He left ‘christianity’ and became a Christian.

Todays’ “evangelical christians’ are big supporters of Donald Trump – a sexual assaulter by his own admission.  Interesting thing about that – so are many of the leaders of the ‘evangelical christians’.  Some have been called out and their ‘sins’ exposed, but they are back in the fold doing the same things they did to get expelled and they are supported by the people and their money to whom they preach every Sunday.  I could call them out by name, but there is not enough room on this computer to contain all of them.

All through United States history the claims that this is a ‘christian’ country have been made loud and clear and that declaration used to move aside, push out, treat abusively those who are among the “non-believers”, the atheists, those others who ‘jesus’ supposedly called ‘christians’ to convert.  Many if not most of the abusive, hatred, pain, agony and more inflicted on the world has been done in the name of some religion.  Today and yesterday it was done in the name of this ‘christianity’.  White Privilege – White Nationalists – the KKK and all the others live by and proselytize their ‘christianity’ and use it to justify the evil they do and have done.  That ‘christianity’ has maintained such beliefs and actions because it makes the doers feel as though they are on their gods side – on the side which makes them better than everyone else.  And they define their god as one who supports and has defined and brought into being the beliefs they live by – a theology that only satan could love.

And most especially – have you noticed the class distinctions between these two religions?  “Jesus and the Disinherited” runs through from the beginning until now of the Christian religion.  Foul up everything with even the ability and justification to kill and not see that as a moral flaw of your religion runs through the other – with its striving of its members to be better than; more important than; wealthier than.  Isn’t that the theology which allowed Trump to proclaim to the nation that they should support MbS because after all Saudi Arabia brought us wealth in our interactions with them and isn’t that what is most important?  Dismembering a human being is nothing when compared to the acquisition of the kind of wealth the Kingdom could bring to the United States.  A basic belief of this ‘christian’ religion after the one which claims they are ‘better than”.

Don’t you think it is time for a renaming ceremony?  Time to clearly distinguish between these two religions?  My Christianity certainly does not begin to be anything like that of Roy Moore’s. Et tu?

__________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sale

Project 2 – Wells Fargo Boycott

__________________________________________________________

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.

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

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

 

Wells Fargo Boycott continued! – #WellsFargo

Monday, December 3rd, 2018

The response has been overwhelming.  Hope you will all continue to work with us to promote and make this a successful action.  Your future and ours depends upon it.  As we receive stories from you, we will publish them in Bettina Network’s Blog.

Your story of your experience is a very strong weapon.  Not only is it your story, but you will find millions have had the same experience.  Sharing lets you know others experience the same thing and it is a pattern and practice of that particular corporation to oppress and rip off its customers.

And don’t forget – close your Wells Fargo banking connection on every level: – close your savings account – cancel your checking account – sell your stock in Wells Fargo – ask corporations to change their transfer agent if it is Wells Fargo connected (the head of Equiniti, the current group which is the transfer agent for many corporations – was formerly the head of Wells Fargo Shareowners Corporation and many of Equinti’s employees were formerly employees of Wells Fargo Shareowners Corporation, clearly this is not a new company, but a new corporate filing to escape the problems created by the old corporation)

If you own stock with Equinity or Wells Fargo Shareowners Corporation as the transfer agent and the corporation won’t change, sell the stock and buy stock with other transfer agents in charge.  Isn’t it amazing how a simple thing like a corporation charged with  bookkeeping can wield such control over the lives of many?

 

TODAY’S STORY

Intimidation is a large weapon in a bank’s arsenal.

Whenever you call a bank which is trying to hide, intimidate, scare, rip you off in some way no matter how small – especially if you are calling about a complaint, the bank employee who has called you or who you have called reads this “notice” to you that “this call is being recorded”.

I had a very negative experience with Wells Fargo about such calls.  They attempt to use those “recordings”  to make claims against me which were not true.  Before that happened to me I had no problems talking to the bank even after they read the “recording announcement”.  Since you have no way to counter the claims the bank can make at subsequent times because they have the only record of your conversation with them you are in a lose, lose situation.  Even if you took careful notes of the conversations you had with the bank, their claim backed up by their recording wins the day.  It is meant to back you off and get you to drop whatever complaint you are making against them no matter how legitimate.

In my case, what they claimed was not true, but they backed up their claim with a recording of a conversation I had with a bank employee.  It was neither a total nor accurate record of the conversation.  I had nothing – they had what was a doctored recording.

What to do?  I went out and bought a simple recording machine which could be plugged into my telephone.  Whenever I have a conversation with a bank during which they announce that they are “recording” the conversation, I let them know that I need just a second to set up my recording and I will be recording my end of the conversation.

The bank employee then ends the conversation because they are not allowed to participate in a conversation where they are recording and you are recording the same conversation.  Only conversations where they have the upper hand because they are recording the conversation are allowed in their universe.

If they have anything to say to me, they can say it in writing.  And, I can respond in writing.  If the bank wants to record the conversation you know there is something going on under the table that honesty has left the room.

_

______Ways to Contact Wells Fargo Bank to let them know you will not do business with them

Corporate Headquarters*

420 Montgomery Street
San Francisco, California 94163
United States
Phone: 866-878-5865

___________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sale

Project 2 – Wells Fargo Boycott

_____________________________________________________________

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.

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

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

 

It Is Time to Boycott Wells Fargo Bank! – #WellsFargo

Sunday, December 2nd, 2018

Bettina Network Foundation, inc. is calling on everyone to join in and actively participate in this boycott of Wells Fargo Bank.

For a very long time banks have been fundamental in making sure there is none to very little change in this society.  Racism, sexism, homophobia, class discrimination, who owns and keeps the wealth in this country and so much more are determined by your local bank – which is probably no longer local but is the branch or unattended outlet of a major, international banking plus other businesses institution.  And most notably they are majorly responsible  for homelessness.  Not entirely, to be sure, but they do maintain the structure – in tact – no matter how loud or long they protest their innocence.

What do they gain?  One thing is keeping us divided against each other so communication as to what they are doing is knowledge kept and known only to a few.

How is wealth created in these United States?  Through either real estate or stock.  Either through ownership of land – real property – as it increases in value, or through ownership in corporations as they increase in value.

Many people have tried to increase their wealth and have been stymied.  Mostly by the banks – even though we are not ignoring the role of other institutions. Unfortunately, in spite of our great educations, most of us are ignorant of how this happens and therefore it continues.

How has this happened?  Little by little we hope to unfold for you all of it so you can function with a knowledge that makes your actions and your life more productive.

Banks have in the past and still do today majorly maintain segregated neighborhoods through “red lining”.  They are helped in this endeavor by some realtors, but brokers, dealers, realtors can’t take all the credit.  Most of it goes to the banks.

Red lining is an old way of maintaining separation of peoples based on things like color, economic and financial status, etc. which has not gone out of existence.   It has just gone underground and periodically takes on new forms.  Banks do not maintain that separation of peoples only through red lining, they do it through the intentional destruction of neighborhoods targeted for “urban renewal” or for a change of a neighborhoods racial make-up or etc.  There are billions of dollars involved and to be made by those who are a part of such transactions along with the loss of lives, livelihoods and more.

Which bank is the most egregious bank of them all?  WELLS FARGO!

In spite of tens of thousands of dollars having gone into the legal process to get them to change and many other ways which have been tried to approach this problem, Wells Fargo is still ripping off the American public – and probably many overseas as well.  As a result of the legal processes, which they lost, the only change we can see is a new and improved marketing and advertising program which the bank has rolled out instead of making restitution in real ways to those they have hurt.  That marketing and advertising program is nothing more than smoke and mirrors to get you to continue doing business with them so they can continue doing that business as usual.  And lets not talk about fines, etc. imposed on Wells Fargo.  To you and me that is like money to go to the store to buy ice cream or a pizza given their overall finances.

The ugliness, which has hurt so many,  is still enshrined within the bank along with its structures and the people who carry them out.  Most are people who carry out these policies to put food on their tables and to keep a roof over their heads.  Many are people competing to have better food and a more expensive roof over their heads.  It is time to take another look at what you can do and how you – Wells Fargo employees – can contribute to bringing about basic change, accepting your responsibility for being one of those making the lives of others extremely difficult so you and yours can benefit.  There are ways you can help bring about basic change and maintain your job and your increasingly lucrative and going up the ladder of success lifestyle.  You don’t have to concentrate on or be involved in only the one – because you are likely to be one of those against whom you moved to make their lives difficult to impossible.  History shows that is probably going to be the result of your efforts, if you continue on the path you are now taking.

Exposure is one way!  Open the windows, throw open the doors and let fresh air flow through.  Let the general public know what is going on and what we can do to make basic change so we all benefit.

Bettina Network Foundation, inc. is calling one way we can all move towards changing this society for the better:

  1.  If you have a savings account with Wells Fargo – close it.  You can open it with another bank.  And yes,  all banks are complicit, but you have to start someplace.  One bank has to make change and one very large bank with lots of influence and which has been shown to be a bank which destroys lives, property, the quality of lots of peoples way of life and keeps on keeping on going down the wrong street ripping peoples lives apart is a good place to start.

2.  Once you have closed your savings account, let us know and let Wells Fargo know you closed your account and why!

3.  If you have a checking account with Wells Fargo – close it.

4.  And once again, let us know and let Wells Fargo know you closed your checking account and why!

5.  If you own stock in Wells Fargo – sell it.  And let Wells Fargo know you sold your stock in their bank and any subsidiaries you can find – let us know about the subsidiaries and let us and Wells Fargo know you sold your stock and why!

6.  And this is a biggy!  Do you own stock in other publicly traded corporations?  Check out who is the transfer agent responsible for keeping the records for that publicly traded corporation.  If it is Wells Fargo Shareowner Services or EG by Equiniti – demand that the corporation change its transfer agent and hire another totally unconnected to Wells Fargo.

Wells Fargo Shareowner Services, from our experience, did lots to hurt John and Jane Q. Public.  Instead of responding to what they did they simply changed their name, ignored the problems they created and kept on moving ahead.  This is common for many corporations.  It is time for this to stop and you have the power to stop these under handed activities.

A statement taken from Equinity’s marketing materials – “Even though Wells Fargo has sold its transfer agency business, our relationship with Wells Fargo remains strong. We will continue to use banking and brokerage services provided by Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo will continue to use us as its transfer agent.”

Today’s Story is only one, but it begins to unfold why we are promoting and managing this boycott and what we want changed?  Bettina Network Foundation, inc’s goal is to eliminate homelessness.  That is a growth area in this society and the ways it has been attacked have not worked.  It is time to look at the base reasons and eliminate and change them so everyone has food, shelter and work in this very wealthy society.  We do not need to continue on this path of the rich getting richer and the middle class becoming homeless.

TODAY’S STORY!

“We owned Dayton-Hudson stock and we owned Target Corp stock for decades. When
Dayton-Hudson became Target Corp. all of our stock became Target Corp. stock. We kept that stock for decades. When we needed to sell the stock because we needed the money
for business purposes and needed that asset changed to cash quickly – as promised it would be by Target Corporation and the Securities and Exchange Commissio – we had to go through Wells Fargo Shareowner Services.

When we contacted Wells Fargo Shareowner Services to ask that they sell the stock – it became a several years consumption of money, time, emotional energy and more.

A transaction that should have taken a few minutes to send a letter with the appropriate form – accurately filled out – and then the next step taken by Wells Fargo Shoreowner Services should have been just four days for the stock to be sold and just a very short time after that for the money to be deposited into my account.  That process  actually took almost three years. Why? We have many theories, but why is irrelevant. What is relevant is
that our money was kept and our access to an asset which the Securities and Exchange Commission supposedly is the watch dog agency to make sure things like this does not happen all were useless in the face of Wells Fargo. Whatever they did was accepted and acceptable and I was put in the position of first a supplicant – please get this done, I need my money;  through to a very angry woman demanding her assets be treated and acted upon per her request.

WHY did I have to go through this? Because the Direct Purchase Plan with Target Corporation gave Wells Fargo Shareowner Services – the transfer agent for Target Corporation – the right to keep the stock certificates of the stock we owned. I was told many stories as to why that was the best thing to do – “when you are ready to sell there is no issue with the stock certificates, they are in the possession of Wells Fargo Shareowner Services or whichever transfer agent Target Corporation was using and the sale of the stock will be stress free for everyone and able to be executed in minutes.”

That was a lie! If, for any reason one of those corporations wants to move against you without showing their hand because you are a political or other kind of nuisance, you have given them the ability to do just that and they will use it – to harass you and make your financial life a shambles at their discretion and Wells Fargo Shareowner Services was the champion at doing that.  Leave your stock certificates for safe keeping with their services and they control your asset and no one is going to come to your rescue.  Attorneys will, costing more than the stock is worth, but no one else moves to help no matter their job description or their mandate.

Target Corporation, in spite of going all the way up the ladder from Customer Service to the “investment” area to the CEO of Target Corporation refused any kind of help.  To them, the responsibility was with Wells Fargo Shareowner Services and they closed off communications of all kind.  Letters went unanswered, pleas went unheeded, the door to the Executive Suite slammed shut.  This was not their problem.  But – said I – this is your stock not Wells Fargo’s stock.  Mean silence prevailed.

It took almost three years of going back and forth with Wells Fargo Shareowner Services, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Attorney Generals Office and more such institutions. When a lawyer became involved – only then were our wishes heeded.  At that point the asset was gone – attorneys don’t come cheap.  So while their goal was not fulfilled one way, it was indeed fulfilled in another way even more effective because it took my time, the asset and emotional energy to get to that solution.

When we started the process of asking that the Target Stock be sold, Wells Fargo Shareowner Services had just taken over as Target Corporations transfer agent. Today just three plus years later ownership of that Wells Fargo Shareowner Services has been transferred to Equinity. The same people are at the top and all through the ranks so what happened? Did their problems multiply because of the way they did business and the number of people they hurt that the easiest thing for them to do was not to make amends for their sins, but to transfer ownership so they did not have to take responsibility and did not have to correct their wrongs?  Talk to Equiniti and you will be told – sorry that is not our problem, we are not the company with whom you had problems.  Clean – swift – vicious!”

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

That is a common way for such corporations to act and it is time for that to stop. If you hurt someone you need to make amends and make those people whole again at the same time changing the processes which caused the problem in the first place.

So we will go back to asking you to check your stock certificates on any stock you own – if the transfer agent is Wells Fargo Shareowner Services or if it is Equiniti, demand that the corporation whose stock you own change their transfer agent or you sell the stock and buy into another corporation which uses another transfer agent and let us and them know what you have done.

We will publish your story with or without your name depending upon your request to us. Why without the name of the person involved? Because retaliation by corporations is common and many have experienced unnecessary hassle and harassment and loss because of corporations trying to silence the public so they can be allowed to continue doing ugly, vile things without taking responsibility and without making those people whole.

Small steps in the right direction have been taken, in the past, by expensive and long lasting law suits from which almost no one benefits.  It is time for that to change!

Your basic responsibility is to the human beings with whom you inhabit this earth, to make it a better – more viable – kinder – gentler – more caring place to live without the ugliness we have all had to endure because of greed, power hunger and other such emotions and character flaws which have pervaded the institutions which are supposed to be there to help us navigate this world in a more flawless manner.

Please pass this along to as many people as you can possibly reach who you think need to read this message and to keep up with this boycott.

What do we need to continue, promote and make this a successful boycott?

Your ideas

Your time and energy to do the work of carrying this forward

Your money to help us meet the costs of such an action

______Ways to Contact Wells Fargo Bank to let them know you will not do business with them

Corporate Headquarters*

420 Montgomery Street
San Francisco, California 94163
United States
Phone: 866-878-5865
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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.

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

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

 

 

What is Bettina Network, inc. – i.e. Publications

Sunday, March 25th, 2018

Bettina Network, inc. has several areas within its corporate structure.  Bettina Network Hedge Schools is one – to refresh your memory or read about the Hedge Schools see https://www.bettina-network.com/blog/archives/3428

Also included in Bettina Network, inc. are its publications: Bettina Network’s Blog and Bettina’s Menu of Events.  Both described below.  If you have questions don’t hesitate to email us at bettina-network@comcast.net 

2.) Bettina Network’s Blog

is a conglomeration of conversations which take place around the breakfast table in one or another Bettina Network Hedge School/homes.                    

-or-

A Member or Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community sent us information which they would like disseminated to a large audience,

-or-

something happens which just strikes our fancy and we want to share it with all of you.

– all will go immediately to Bettina Network’s Blog.

Bettina Network’s Blog covers a wide range of topics —- With points of view you generally won’t find other places — you never know what will appear next — and that comes from the diversity within our corporation.  An article could come from one of the  Bettina Network Hedge Schools; members of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community; or our own quirky people who work for the Corporation; or from those who volunteer to help us achieve our goals to “make this a better world one small step at a time”.

 

3.) Bettina’s Menu of Events

provides a rich, curated list of activities that will keep you busy,

entertained,

will add to your intellectual knowledge base,

and help create and expand your store of wisdom.

Use the “Menu” before your next stay in a Bettina Lifestyle Home!

Bettina’s Menu of Events also includes reviews of everything, critiques of events, places, restaurants, happenings and more.

To use Bettina’s Menu of Events you must be a member of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community.

As a member you will receive a password, which allows you access to Bettina’s Menu of Events, among other benefits.

Besides getting events to attend during your stay in a Bettina Network Hedge School you can also add events you find of interest so others can share what you found.  Some of our best events have been added to Bettina’s Menu of Events by members of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community.  We encourage you to search the world for just that perfect event to share.

……And so we grow.

You can interact with us by:

CALLING: when you next need reservations either for yourself or from visitors coming from other cities, states, countries who would benefit immensely from spending their time away from home in a Bettina Network Hedge School.

Our homes are wonderful places to stay – some reach the appellation of exquisite.

Not much can compare to what we offer.

Our rates range from $110 through $495/night. In other cities the rates also vary depending upon what is offered.

Call if you are moving, changing your lifestyle, settling an estate – we are able to sell furnishings, jewelry, automobiles, stocks, bonds, etc.

Call if you have a home and want to join Bettina Network, inc. as a Bettina Host Family sharing your knowledge with guests who come from around the world. If your home is not currently ‘exquisite’ we have people who will work with you to make sure you are on a par with everyone else in the network.

Call if you have a home you want to donate to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. that we can use to house those who are in need and so continue to expand our training and more, recovering someone who might not find their way otherwise.  Yes, we do offer a tax deduction through Bettina Network Foundation, inc. a 501(c)3 corporation.

Call if you just want to talk to get acquainted and know more about who we are, what we do and where we are going.

And in the future, coming as soon as our resources allow – Bettina Network’s Research Library.

Sincerely,

All of us at Bettina’s Bettina Network, inc.

P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238

1-617-497-9166 (or) 1-800 347 9166 (toll free within the U. S. and Canada)

-or-

email: bettina-network@comcast.net

blog: bettina-network.com/blog

Bettina’s Menu of Events can only be accessed by members of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community via their personal password .

Check out our web site for more information at www.bettina-network.com .

We are an exciting company which also includes Bettina Network’s Blog – Bettina’s Menu of Events – Bettina Network’s Sales – Bettina Network Research Library and Bettina Network Foundation, inc a 501(c)3 corporation.

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Health Care – What’s at stake!

Friday, September 22nd, 2017

Lessons learned at an estate sale:

It is time to take this health care debate beyond the claim that the Republicans are pushing this health care bill because it is actually a tax cut and was promised to their wealthier constituents.  Or to Trump’s involvement with the claim that he is interested only because he wants to take down everything Obama has ever done.

Put that aside and let’s take a look at what really is at stake.

The Health Industry in America is one of the biggest rip-offs around.  It is the quickest way to level the economic playing field and to force the middle-class American public to continue pushing that ball uphill to the place where the rich get richer and the poor just have a harder battle to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads.

That is a big claim, so let me give you an example of what happens today with health care where it is currently in these United States.

As many of you know,  we manage estate sales.  In the process, we interact with people who are in a change space – their lives are transitioning from one lifestyle to another.  That can be a good or a bad change space.

What about the ones in a bad place?????

How does that happen.

We just did an estate sale for a family where the mother died after a several year bout with Alzheimers.  The family did not institutionalize her, she stayed in her home and the family took turns taking care of her with the help of health care workers.  Every once in a while, but not often there was the trip to the hospital and once a short stay in a nursing home.

Because she lived longer than expected and the insurance ran out to underwrite some of the costs for the health care workers – the family had to sign their mother’s home over to the state to pay for her health care.  The family was forced to sell the home so the lien could be satisfied.  The state collected on the lien they placed on the home when the mother died.  It was not a large, very expensive home, but it is where this woman raised her children.

She was a woman who worked to maintain her home – who paid her mortgage – who thought she was leaving her children a small nest egg to help them through their old age and possible illnesses as they age.  None of that happened because of the cost of health care and the inadequacy of the current state of our health insurance.  She worked hard her entire life and at her death she left the state richer – not her children –  by the confiscation of her home with its mortgage paid in full.  Her health insurance ran out because she lived well into her 90’s.

I thought of those people who died in their 50’s having used very little of their health insurance benefits.  What happened to the reason for insurance – which is to average out those two people so things work out in the end.  Under our current system the state benefitted from both people – the one who died young left the state well off from having died, after having paid into health benefits without use and from the older woman who died after a very long life and a miserable disease to lose her home and its contents and everything else she had to the state.

Apparently, theis does work out, but not for John Q. Public.

The rabidness of the wealthier class and the strong push to get a health care bill passed which doesn’t cover a third of the population looks to me like pure greed.  I couldn’t quite put my finger on why, I just know the look and feel of greed.

This is simply another way to control. oppress, keep poor a society whose people will need to work hard just to keep their heads above water – with endless benefits to the wealthy..

After the experience of that estate sale, I understood more fully what is at stake when we talk about universal health care.  Or even trying to get rid of the little relief people received from the limited coverage of the Affordable Health Care Act.  I didn’t understand when all of that lobbying for the ADA was going on why the strong fight and what was at stake that made so many try so desperately  to make sure the Obama bill failed.

What was tragic about that sale – it is not the only one nor is it one of just a few – nor did it happen because of some unusual circumstances – it is a common occurrence under our present health care system.  And that sale was one of the more civilized way we strip people of their life’s work.  Many are losing everything through bankruptcy because of illnesses and bills that have to be paid to maintain a sick relative or yourself. Those instances are not as civilized as the estate sale.  To work with a family facing bankruptcy and still not able to provide the kind of health care their family member needs is beyond tragic.

I lived through Hillary Clinton’s attempt at dealing with health care when she was First Lady.  She said a lot – most of which was called lying. And she and her husband were shot down as harshly as possible over any and everything.  I wondered then what was at stake – it was clearly huge.

After her effort failed we all got to see why she felt so strongly about health care.  She was not lying.  She was right on target when she predicted that our health care premiums were going to start sky rocketing – and sure enough, monthly health care bills for many of us doubled and tripled very quickly after that.  It there became crystal clear what was so urgent about getting better health care for everyone.

Sometimes, all we need is a little actual experience to understand the dynamics and what is beneath the surface when something like this health care argument is going on.

You, wealthy American, may be fine and what you are doing may seem to be to your financial benefit.   Let me give you a word of caution. Your children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren are going to grow up in the society you create.  While this benefits you, it just might give them a horrid life that they will owe to your greed, selfishness and inability to see beyond your own gold-plated nose.

And joining the frey is Bernie Sanders.  The man who put out all kind of horrible images and names for Hillary Clinton.  Some say he laid the ground work and fertilized the land so Trump could reap a great crop.  Whether his actions were intentional or not, the end result was the same.

And so it continues.

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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.

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.

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

 

 

Increase Your Income and Life Experiences

Thursday, July 6th, 2017

Join Bettina Network, inc. and become a member of this great Lifestyle Community. Join with Musicians, Artists, Theologians, Designers, Nutritionists, Doctors, Lawyers, Business Executives, Philathropists, Nurses, Secretaries, Videographers and others to create one great educational institution – become one of the Bettina Network Hedge Schools (patent pending).

Use your homes to welcome guests who are interested in your art, your craft, your vocation, your lifestyle and who want to learn from you.  Maybe, instead, you want to learn from them.  Tired of being in a society where you are closed in to only those like you – racially, same political beliefs, in the same financial and social class – join us as we work towards a more open, diverse and giving society.

Our guests are in your area for other reasons, but also want to improve their skills; see what others are doing; learn from scratch; be a part of another’s lifestyle for a brief time or some may want to just hang-out to take lessons.  Interested?  Call us at 617 497 9166 or toll free within the U. S. at 1-800-347-9166.  Email us at bettina-network@comcast.net.

P. S.  Our homes also include those who are very wealthy and very poor.  Are you one of the very privileged and want to know what its like to live in a ghetto?  Well, this is your chance.

Share your designs; get ideas from others staying with you; talk your craft, your vocation, your involvements, your ideas, your philosophy over breakfast and expand your involvement in the world.

We are an educational institution without walls.  Learn about the world’s religions from a theologian on the cutting edge or one who is very conservative; sit at the table with master thinkers; learn about technology from those moving the boundaries into unimaginable places.

As a guest in one of our homes – learn about what is coming to make digital communication obsolete.  See exquisite stained glass and see how sculptors work.  Find a piece of clay and try your hand at your own sculpture.  Heard about hot glass?  Stay in one of our homes with a kiln to see the entire process.

Share your craft.  Embroidery?  Clay Pottery?  Silver jewelry? Knitting? There are endless possibilities you can share with others and earn what you need to move your craft even further.

Call us for more information and to put your home and/or studio in Bettina Network, inc. Also, check out bettina-network.com and see what else we have to offer.

For more information about Bettina Network Hedge Schools see https://bettina-network.com/pages/hedge_school/.

Also see https://bettina-network.com/pages/hedge_school_become/

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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.

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.

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

Who Reads Bettina Networks Blog?

Saturday, October 8th, 2016

In September, 2016

42,398

people read

Bettina Network

Blog!

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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.

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.

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

WHY VOTE FOR DONALD TRUMP!

Saturday, October 1st, 2016

What we all have been trying to understand is why so many people – good, kind, loving, caring people – are supporting and intend to vote for Donald Trump.

They have seen – as we all have – Trump’s negatives.  So why and where does this support come from?  We are past the racism, and sexism which has been used to explain Trump.  We are looking at and talking to the many who are 120% behind Donald Trump and nothing is coming between them and the “Don”.  How come!

His supporters have heard his lies and knew they were lies.  They’ve heard how he treats women and know that to be true.  They’ve heard about his racism and knew that also to be true.  They’ve heard all the hints about his bad temper and thin skin and have seen and heard how he will quickly and viciously insult anyone who he even thinks has insulted him.  They’ve heard the hints at the possibility of his being tied to the mafia – both within the United States and Internationally.  And they have heard and seen how all of the greats and near greats who are greatly respected in the United States are now falling all over themselves to detach themselves from being seen as even passively supporting Donald Trump.

So why are there so many still in his camp?

Much of this support is coming from people who have been lied to – cheated – who have seen their hard earned money stolen from them by those within the system in what has been made to look like ways supported by our laws.  They understand the evils of this system in which we live better than those at the top or near the top who have benefitted from the ugly ways of those who pull the strings for the money to flow from the have nots to a handful of the haves who can then step out into the spotlight looking clean, honest and working for the people.  They have lived through some financial horror stories, which most people can’t or won’t believe and which no one is fixing.  Given that, it is totally possible to overlook Trump’s negatives and hope that their lives will be better because Trump will fix it.

Let me give you a few examples – real life examples in which we have been involved.  Having a Foundation you can use it in one of many ways.  One way is to give money to be able to take a 501(c)3 deduction on your income taxes.  Or, you can give money, take the deduction – which doesn’t mean a lot to you – but you take away what you really need, which is the feeling that you have helped those in need. (But you have not had to rub elbows with those in need the “Foundation” people have been hired to do that – and even the “Foundation” people keep themselves removed from the actual recipients.)  Or, you can get involved, personally with the people your Foundation is working to help and therein lies the path to depression, frustration, disbelief, the death of your idols and the ideology with which you were raised, and for many,  your belief in the religious structures in which you function  and more.

Let me tie into the Wells Fargo mess and give you an actual example.  Put yourself into this one persons’ place and then you will see Donald Trump in a very different light.

A Disclaimer:   We are not advocating that you vote for Trump.  That vote would only make things worse, because all of this pain and suffering we have seen would be brought into the light and done without the cover under which it now functions.  Under a Donald Trump administration the front under which all of this evil operates would be stripped bare and made totally legitimate and we would then have to function seeing evil with nothing shielding us from the seriously infected swamp in which it lives.

Back to WELLS FARGO:

Why fight such a giant?  What have they done?  You’ve heard the Congressional hearings.  You’ve read in the papers how President Stumpf has been forced to give back millions to the company. Lets take a  look at the human cost to John and Jane Q. Public:

Assume you have a mortgage with Wells Fargo.

That opens you up to some incredible financial games, created by greed which has created today’s billionaires.

How?

There are many ways – this is just one.

Given your mortgage, Wells Fargo people are now able to open your finances and look in – and from what we have seen, they do just that. What do they have to gain? If they cause you financial trouble across the street, then at home, you will be subject to fees and penalties because they have set up a situation in which you stumble.  If you fall, so much the better, they have everything.  If you just stumble, that’s not so bad and that’s ok too because their fees are high.  They benefit under either scenario.

One other way you are vulnerable to them is through their Wells Fargo Shareowners Service.  A seemingly small, innocuous bureaucratic division which seemingly is quite straight forward in what it is tasked to do.  A little bureaucratic place in this great giant that you probably don’t realize exists.  A little place that interacts with and can control your assets in larger corporations whom they serve.

They are the agents – handling the stock transactions for several large corporations – like Target Stores.  So, let us assume you have a Wells Fargo mortgage and you own Target stock.  Now, lets assume that stock was purchased through Targets Direct Purchase Plan.  What a benefit.  You can send the company small amounts of money to purchase their stock.  So you establish such an account for your children and over the years accumulate Target stock by sending them just a few dollars each month.

Those few dollars add up to a few thousands of dollars and on and on it goes.

Now comes the time you need to sell that stock.  So you contact the transfer agent and ask them to send you the forms necessary for you to sell the stock.  They refuse.  You call again.  They refuse again.  And so it goes. What does that do to you?  You live your financial life assuming this is an asset you can convert to cash in a matter of days – or at least in a matter of a month at the longest, given the excessive times bureaucracies take to work.

Finally – months later – after much time spent on many telephone calls,  you get the forms.  You fill them out and spend over $20 sending the forms back to them – the original forms – via overnight mail to insure they get where they are going and so you have a record and can trace anything that might go wrong with the mail.  And then you wait – and wait – and wait.  But, nothing happens. They received the correctly filled out forms the very next day.  How do you know the forms are correctly filled out?  Because you took them to a bank and to a stock broker friend and you and the banker and the stock broker filled them out.  The banker executing a couple of the forms, as required by Wells Fargo Shareowner Services.

What happens as you wait for your money to be transferred into the account you indicated on your forms?  NOTHING!

So weeks later, you call – not Target, but Wells Fargo Shareowner Services.  Two large corporate entities tied together via this kind of transaction.  These two corporations are also tied to tens of thousands of people with small amounts of money they have accumulated over years of sending their bits and pieces of money to purchase Target stock. There are other large corporate entities so tied together.  Without knowing this you would not connect something happening to you through Target, inc. with Wells Fargo.

An interesting fact, but nothing that bothers you at the time – checking out Target to decide whether to continue investing in them at a later date you discover there is no way to contact their Executive Offices.  You don’t need to, but it is curious that their CEO is totally enclosed and cut off from any and all people except those close to him.  No telephone, no email, no way for the public to reach them. And this is a publicly owned corporation?  So you put that aside for later review.

What happens with the stock you are trying to sell?  The Wells Fargo Shareowner Services Company knows nothing about you, nor the forms you sent to them, and you have to hold on the telephone for over 45 minutes and insist and prove you sent forms to them while they search for these forms they claim to have “LOST”?

Finally, when you produce your proof of mailing, they find the forms and assure you the stock will be sold and you will be sent the money.

And then?  You get a telephone call from someone else from Wells Fargo Shareowner Services days later to say your forms are being sent back to you because they are not filled out correctly.  You ask why?  The person on the telephone does not know.  You hold on the phone and when someone finally comes back – they don’t know either.

So you get the forms back – and your finances are becoming a mess because you were selling the stock for a reason – you need the money. You have a business to expand.  You have projects you have started that need more funding. You have people you have promised to help who need the help now!

And then the fun begins.  For months nothing happens and you go round and round – sending letters, making telephone calls, getting nothing.  And your money is still tied up in Target stock – which you cannot use as money – it is just, at this point, worthless. You can’t even sell the stock through another stock broker because you don’t have the stock certificates – Wells Fargo Shareowner Services holds those and won’t send them to you either.

An interesting side note – Target, inc. comes from Dayton-Hudson, a Minneapolis based corporation.  Back in the day, Dayton-Hudson was known to be part of an interlocking directorate with influence and no inhibitions on using that influence to manipulate individuals – among other possibilities.

And remember – back a few paragraphs – your mortgage is being held by Wells Fargo.  So, is this accidental with one having nothing to do with the other or is something else operating here!

And then your door bell rings.  It is a Chinese Real Estate Agent who is offering to buy your property, claims she understands that you need the money and she has a client who is willing to pay cash – at half the value of the property, in a hot real estate market, where half leaves you a few million dollars short of the real value of the property, but here is the next step in this evil and greed which strips people of everything financially in the end.  It is nothing you could conceive in a country which touts itself as good and other countries as evil or at best as not so good.

You turn down the real estate agent – and at first you are mystified as to why she comes to your door with such an outlandish offer.  You don’t have financial problems so what is she talking about!  The door is slammed with some anger because it is dawning on you that  there is a connection between this and what is going on with Target, Inc. and Wells Fargo.

This story has throw backs to Pontius Pilate all throughout.  He called for the bowl of water to wash his hands and symbolically wash away his guilt at what will be the unbelievably brutal killing of Jesus.  This story is a modern, institutional adaptation of that old, old story which many in this society are experiencing.  The symbols of the bowl of water with rag and soap have changed to new 21st century symbols of the same thing.

The realtor reappears in a few weeks.  This time, after you have called and written to Wells Fargo Shareowner Services a lot – gotten angry – done lots to get your stock sold so you can move on with your financial life..  None of which was effective, even almost two years later.  The Wells Fargo Shareowner Services door is solidly closed.  Their refusal to sell your stock is clearly a refusal and violates everything on which this society is built.  Wall Street could not function without the guarantee that you could convert your stock into cash within days.  So they are violating the very foundation of our economic system and with impunity.  Even contacting the SEC hasn’t helped.

You do get one foot in the door – so you think.  Wells Fargo has appointed someone to investigate this stock problem.  Who?  Someone from their mortgage department.  And who holds your mortgage?  Wells Fargo!

It doesn’t dawn on you what that means.  Your assumption is that this is the company process and the person appointed is probably someone they have trained and designated to head such investigations.  Dumb dumb – she is with the mortgage department.  What you discover in the process is that she does not have access to the people she needs to talk to, nor the records she needs to access to do an investigation.  So why was she chosen to head this investigation?  You gave her the right to access your records with Wells Fargo Shareowner Services Company in a three way telephone call with someone from Wells Fargo Shareowner Services Department, but months later you are told that was only for that particular telephone conversation.  When the three of you ended that telephone call,  so did that sham of an investigation.  Interestingly, you were not told that during the conversation – a conversation which was the initiation of the investigation.  In fact, you were led to believe the opposite – very specifically, that she would continue the investigation and get back to you with her findings.

After this “investigation” came to an end with no results and the mortgage person told you she was in mortgages and had no access to other departments – and you asked why was she assigned to head this “investigation” given those circumstances and you didn’t get a straight answer you realize you have been played. Played to your detriment and the company’s need to buy time to make sure you were becoming more and more financially destabilized.

And then comes the real estate agent again.  This time with an elderly Chinese gentleman to assure you there is a “buyer” who is willing to pay cash.  And, oh by the way, you are really too old to be saddled with owning such a large house.  And, oh by the way, we are willing to pay you half of what the house is worth.  And oh, by the way, you should be thrilled because that will allow you a very comfortable old age – you won’t have to work anymore. And for reasons that made no sense – her last ‘oh, by the way’ was did you get out for a walk today, you need to do that, you know.  With my mouth hanging open wide enough for bugs to fly in from the shock of this – she went on to say they understand we were having troubles with our mortgage and they came to help.  And where did they get this information – you ask?  And they answered – Wells Fargo!  So you throw them off your porch – because you were astute enough not to let them into your house.  And you thank God you were raised to control your anger and not revert to the most primitive kind of violence because this certainly is the point at which that would have happened if your family had not been so tenacious about raising someone who is -on the surface, at least – non-violent.

So the game continues.

Next up – Herb Chambers Automobile Sales and Honda Financial Services.

Because you have been put into this cash flow problem – you have to move assets around to have enough to make up the short fall from the money you expected from selling stock you legitimately own and have been assured, from all the federal statues, the traditions, the law which set in place the Securities and Exchange Commission,  that you would be able to sell and settle in four business days.  This is now over one and a half years later and even with constant telephone calls, letters, emails, the stock has not been sold.

In the process, your car note falls behind by 52 days because you were foolish enough to continue to expect the stock to be sold so you did not transfer assets needed to get all the things done you planned to do before this mess started.  You pay the car note by wiring money into the bank account of the Honda Financial Services Corporation and go about your business.  You have, after all, transferred the assets you need.  You will be fine for months – although your business will not have the money it needs to grow according to the plans you set for it.  You will have to take a little from here and there to make up for the personal financial problems you would have otherwise.  So you do that.

And  behold, arriving at your door is this huge truck to repossess your car.  Surely they are mistaken.  You owe nothing and the total balance due  on the car note is very miniscule.  Well, therein lies the problem.  If it were a huge car note owing – no problem and no one would bother you.  You would have been charged a $5 late fee, which you would pay happily because you know that was owed, but instead, here comes this truck to take away a car on which you have no monies overdue.

The truck driver is not fazed and does nothing because you have threatened him with theft, criminal trespass, fraud and a whole lot more.  So he steps away and waits for his bosses to tell him what to do.  He is clear that he is not going to risk being arrested.

As all of this happens you reflect back on a couple people you worked with in the past to help them save their cars from such a problem.  The total pictures of what they were going through was lost on you because you still had some trust in the system and how it worked.  The greed had not surfaced for you in all of its brilliant magnificence.  Even as you see this truck trying to take your car, the greed intrinsic in this still has not manifest itself.  This just seems like a bureaucratic mistake.

As this all plays out for you, the realization hits that the people you tried to help and who lost their cars did so because they became too afraid of the car company trying to repossess their cars.  And, they never lost the expectation that there was human decency and some honesty in all of this and no one would do to them what ultimately happened.  They were so wrong.

What all of the people you helped with their car problems had in common was a very small amount owing on their car and they were over 30 days past due on their current payment.  You gave them their note payment, which they made to the company, but they still lost their car even though when they lost it, their car payments were up to date.  How could that be?  It was a mystery then, but your faith in the system didn’t lead you to tear it apart to see what was wrong.  It was all revealed, however, with this experience.  The evil is overwhelming.  You can see it as it dances around the people with whom you are dealing – it is all bright and gold and shining unbelievably.  And you thought only good was bright and shining and full of light.  The society that helped raise you taught you that evil was all dark and suspicious and, well like Africans and here you were looking at evil bright and gold and shining unbelievably.  What a break through moment!

What was the difference between you and the people you tried to help?  You were calling the police to have this repossession guy arrested.  The people you moved to help were too afraid to do that and instead put their faith in the goodness of the company.  So they lost their cars.  And what happened to their cars?  With the balance owing on their car being under $3,000 and they having used the money you gave them to bring their monthly payments up to date and the car company demanding that they pay twice that because since they were behind and a repossession notice had been issued, their cars could not be released until the payment they had already made was made again. The fact that the car company had received their cash and put it in their bank account, but still demanded that the amount due – even though it had been paid – be paid again either by bringing cash to the company or sending cash via Western Union’s “Quick Collect” – those car owners were lost.  They didn’t have the car payment they were behind – we gave them that.  Once that was paid they were too ashamed to come back to us to ask for their car payment twice – they thought we would not understand and would think they were trying to game us.

So, being too ashamed to come back to us to ask for their car payment twice or to tell us what happened – something they didn’t understand and didn’t know how to explain, they just kept quiet and lost their cars.  Apparently, Honda Financial Services depended upon that and knew this was the normal outcome.

Once the car payment was made a second time – according to Honda Financial Services employees, – the cash received by them  would be refunded, their car would be released and everybody would be happy.  Since we had given folks the money to make the car payment, they clearly did not have money to pay it again and were too embarrassed to come back to us for more money so they lost their cars.  That part of the story we didn’t know and didn’t understand until now.

What happened to the cars?  With less than a $3,000 balance due – the cars were sold in the used car lot for over $10,000 and who made out with a substantial profit?  Not the original owner, because title was transferred away from them before the sale was made so they had no right to pay Honda what was due and keep the balance.

So, with no money to buy another car and with the car company having wrecked their credit – the car company experiences yet another dividend.   The people so negatively affected could buy another car from the same company – but they would have to pay very high interest and make two monthly payments – one for the downpayment, and one for the regular payment for the car.  A couple people we tried to help did that and nearly killed themselves in the process.  We lost track of them so we don’t know how that story ended.

But I am getting ahead of myself in this story.

What we experienced from Herb Chambers and Honda Financial Services was a demand for a second payment of the monthly car payment even though there was no payment due.  They tried shame; threats; acknowledged they had received the monies sent to them; that the account was not delinquent on any level; but they still demanded the amount due be paid again and even though they had received the cash which brought the account up to date, we would have to either bring them cash for that exact amount or send them a Western Union “Quick Collect” amount.  After they received that Western Union money or we brought them cash to their company, they would take the cash they had already received out of their account and, in due time, send it to us  as a refund.   They claimed this demand was legal.  It was amazing!  What they were demanding was totally illegal and as of today we have not received a refund nor has the second payment been credited to our account.  WOW!

We wanted an explanation as to why they could not keep the money already in their account – why they wanted us to bring them cash so they then could take the cash previously sent to them and received by them out of their account and send it to us as a refund.  It is the demand which made the people we helped lose their cars.  The expectation was that you would not be able to pay this second amount demanded because you had been late on the first payment.  So they were foaming at the mouth looking at a car that they could sell and make a very substantial profit on,for their company, showing they had done an excellent job.

They became so helpful at this point.  They would see to it that the car was returned as soon as we notified them this second payment had been made and they would do everything possible to make sure we would not have to wait a moment longer than necessary for the return of the car.  When we brought them this second payment they would contact the repossession company and have our car released immediately.  What they didn’t realize was that they didn’t have possession of the car throughout all of this because the car repossession guy had gone home without the car.  He got the message, did not want to be arrested, because he knew what he was doing was illegal.

We sent the second amount via Western Union because we wanted to follow this through to the end.  When we called to verify that the monies had been sent and received by them, according to Western Union, we couldn’t help but notice the disappointment and surprise in the voice of the person from Honda Financial Services with whom we spoke.

When we realized what the people we were helping had gone through and some were still going through,  it was beyond belief. It began to dawn on us the extent of  the fraud involved and how intimidating the people were who were practiced at this.  How many people have so suffered.  Most people have buckled under this kind of thing.  We tend to be mean and angry so we call out the police, the attorneys, the relevant governmental departments and agencies involved and everyone we know, to attack.

What makes this possible and why is it so widespread?  SHAME!  People are ashamed even when they are being ripped off

We have no shame.  We are outraged.  And unfortunately for those trying to rip us off, we were not broke – we simply had a transfer of assets problem and in that situation many are caught unawares that this is what happens to people who are actually in a financial bind.  Everything they have is taken away.  Stripped away with great glee.  It is amazing to see how unprincipled, how greedy, how many lies people will tell to strip another person of their money and assets.

What is even more alarming – the people doing the stripping don’t benefit from what they have ‘stolen’.  The company for which they work benefits.  And in that company, the people at the top of those companies benefit.  Those doing the stripping are simply allowed to keep their jobs and, in the evenings, to sit by the fireplace to watch the flames that will consume them when they die – and they will not even have had the benefits of the ill-gotten gains they made possible for others to enjoy.  A very few others, but others indeed.

This has been an experience we are going to push to the limits because this needs to stop.  We realize we won’t be able to stop it – its like using a small wooden fence to stop a tsunami, but we are not going to sit by and let that tsunami swamp everything without trying to stop it.

This experience did enlighten us as to why so many people are willing to overlook Trump’s negatives and support him.  They are looking for relief from an extremely oppressive system.  If you dig into the past of many Trump supporters you will find a situation much more dire than the one I have described to you because at some point, someone in their family has probably been made destitute by these machinations.

As for us – we are supporting Hillary Clinton.  Our more sane side has won and we realize that what we described will only be made worse by someone like Donald Trump coming into office.  We are sure he has had enough experience to know how to take advantage.  What those supporting the “Don” don’t realize is that he has done some of what I described above.  Not the same particulars, but in his own corporate way he has made many people destitute – many others have lost their businesses because of his greed and on and on and on.  But those who have gone through this kind of thing are looking for a way out and someone to come to their aid and they see that someone as Donald Trump.

Clear your eyes people.  He will only make a bad scene worse.

We don’t know where the solution lies, but we are going to continue to move the needle and do what we can to expose and stop these scams – thefts – destructions – horriblenesses of this system out of control.  It is time for that 1% to get real and do something to level the playing field instead of stealing all the turf and exposing the swamp underneath.

Wasn’t it an emperor of Russia who had a wonderful life until the peasants revolted?  And the king of France? And many others, who were so busy ripping off their citizens that they didn’t realize they had gone too far until the ax fell on their heads wielded by the very citizens whose economic and financial lives they were destroying.

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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.

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.

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

Happy New Year – 2016

Monday, January 4th, 2016

Bettina Trademark
…..and lots of success, great experiences, with much learning which develops into wisdom.

We had an amazing year full of many challenges which we have learned from and used to improve Bettina Network, inc.

We added Bettina Network Hedge Schools – which you can read about here –

http://bettina-network.com/pages/hedge_school/

and while tentative at first, they are now the most requested places to stay in Bettina Network.

Members of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community will receive write-ups about additions to the Hedge Schools all throughout 2016.

We hope you will suggest additions that will improve our offerings. In 2016 , we offer, $150 for suggesting a home which becomes either a part of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools or Bettina Network’s Bed & Breakfasts.

We are also still traveling to spend the night at the homes of those who want to join the bed & breakfast part of Bettina Network, inc. We do not take anyone into the Network without someone. who is a part of Bettina Network, spending the night to know what kind of experience guests will have in that particular location. We do the same thing with Bettina Network Hedge Schools so all of Bettina Network homes are thoroughly checked out and so are the guests who make reservations to stay in those homes.

Bettina Network Lifestyle Community is moving along and our goal this year is to make the Bettina Network Menu of Events one of the most outstanding and reliable calendars on the planet. That is a tall order, but we have experimented for a couple years and are now ready to move forward growing this gift for those who qualify. Membership in Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community is not something you can buy. It is totally a gift from Bettina Network, inc. You access the benefits of this membership with a password which we send to you and renew yearly..

Besides putting together a calendar of events for a particular location, you can also use your password to add events which you would like to see offered by Bettina’s Menu of Events.

Bettina Network’s Blog passed one million readers about December 15, 2015. It was time for great celebration. The Blog continues to move ahead with an average of one thousand plus readers each day. In 2016 we will have a small number of sponsors of this Blog. Sponsorship will be open by invitation only.

If you are a member of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community you can send information, articles, blogs, pictures to add to this publication.

Reviews of places, things, books, etc. that we find interesting and stimulating will become a more frequent part of Bettina Network’s Blog over 2016. If you have suggestions, please don’t hesitate to send them.

Bettina Network Foundation, inc. is becoming amazing and beginning to fulfill our goals in ways we didn’t dream possible. You can read about the Foundation here: –http://bettina-network.com/pages/foundation/?ref=foundation and in Bettina Network’s Blog.

One of our big pushes this year – in 2016 – will be Bettina Network’s Estate Sales. It will be the end of February before that promise begins to be fulfilled, but we think you will find what we are doing with this part of the corporation, exciting. And – there will be parts of Bettina Network’s Estate Sales which will be accessible by Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Members only.

We have an improved money and credit card collection system. Our web site has a secure page where you can leave your credit card for any number of reasons and receive an email with the details of your charge within a minute of Bettina Network having charged your account. We love this part of our improvements and we hesitated on installing it because we wanted to be very careful with other people’s credit cards. This worked so seamlessly we fell in love and are now moving along very happily with our new system.

If you have suggestions for change, additions, subtractions, etc. please don’t hesitate to call us, email us, send us a letter, or however you communicate – stay in touch and help us keep Bettina Network, inc. moving ahead and fulfilling its original promise.

I couldn’t end this without a comment on the struggle we had all year and in past years as we suffered from having our business idea and business plan stolen without our knowledge or consent. That is still a problem. However, Harvard Business School has done a study on Airbnb and found racism in their system negatively affecting both host families and guests who are non-White. It is very difficult to maintain diversity/equality. It is easy and careless to install such a system which practices racism against minorities, especially in this 21st Century. Technology makes that kind of racism the kind which Pontius Pilate would understand and recognize immediately – bring that bowl of water and let those who practice such racism wash their hands and deny intentionality and culpability.

We look forward to all the excitement and experiences we are going to have in 2016 – the good, the bad and the in-between. All of it is what it takes to keep us on our toes and moving ahead.

Have a wonderful New Year!

From – All of us at Bettina’s

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A New Year’s Suggestion for Better Health!

Friday, January 1st, 2016

We would like to start the New Year by wishing you the happiest and healthiest of days which will extend to the entire year.

We also wish you a year of the kind of work and play that will keep you healthy and will also help change the world.  Take care  of and empathize with those with whom you share this earth – not just humans, but animals and all the other creatures.  Too often we think only humans matter and we generally can also eliminate some of them from our care and concern.

An example of what one man did with a small part of his life during a very difficult time in the United States:  “Dr. Paul Bragg opened in NYC, Macfadden’s 7 famous “Penny Restaurants” during big Depression Era. They fed millions of hungry people with healthy vegetarian meals for only a penny! Inspirational music and literature was given out to inspire and guide them.”

To pass along to you something else from the Bragg family – their motto – ” “You are what you Eat, Drink, Breathe, Think, Say, & Do!”

Sometimes, or should we say most times, we act as though what we Eat, Drink, Breathe, Think, Say and Do has no affect on us whatsoever when in reality that is the sum total of who we are.

Finally, we recommend that you subscribe to the Bragg family newsletter.  It is free and always full of sage advice.   To subscribe you will find a box on the first page of their web site, which can be found by clicking on this link – www.bragg.com – fill in your email address and you are set to receive their monthly newsletters.

Excerpts from their JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2016 newsletter follows:

T. Colin Campbell launched a revolution when he published his breakthrough book, THE CHINA STUDY. Dr. Campbell spent 40 years researching nutrition around the world. What he found consistently and repeatedly is that too much animal protein in the diet – anything that comes from an animal like beef, chicken, fish, dairy, eggs – causes not only cancer, but heart disease, and a long list of other diseases. Doctors and Scientists everywhere are corroborating his findings. Legions of medical and lifestyle experts are joining the chorus: the Epidemic of Disease that is currently plaguing the United States is in large part due to the American Diet. We’ve been brainwashed by advertising, and tempted by low-cost, government subsidized industries to eat too much meat and dairy. Not only that, much of the commercial food in our country is now tainted with pesticides, GMOs, growth hormones, and other cancer-causing toxins! Want to stay healthy? Eat more fresh, organic fruits & vegetables, and Dr. Campbell recommends eliminating animal protein or cutting back to 5%. Your body will love being healthy and the planet needs you too!

January — New Year Resolutions for a Healthy New 2016

Don’t be part of World’s Health Crisis, be part of the Solution! 2016 is the perfect time to begin your new lifestyle: switch to a plant-based diet for you and your family; create a workout schedule and stick with it; learn yoga, meditation, or just plain deep breathing to help eliminate stress. What we eat today is walking and talking tomorrow. Exercise enhances circulation which is critical for elimination, and delivery of oxygen and nutrients to your cells. Stress is negative energy that can build up in your system and ultimately cause your immune system to collapse. Most people can stay healthy by making these simple, lifestyle improvements. Here’s to healthy 2016!

February is “American Heart Month”

Heart Disease is STILL the Leading Cause of Death of Men and Women in America. But did you know that heart disease is not only preventable, but reversible? And in many cases without surgery? Our country has a handful of brave, pioneer medical doctors like Dr. Dean Ornish, and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, who are standing up against the “system,” and curing heart disease by putting their patients on plant-based diets! And, as mentioned above, exercise and stress management is also important as well as abstinence from tobacco and alcohol! Learn more from the Bragg “Healthy Heart” book and other publications on www.Bragg.com.

ENJOY BRISK WALKS DAILY & HEALTHY Stationary Jogging

Do while watching TV, talking on phone, or at work breaks. It gives your 70 trillion cells a great massage that promotes healthy circulation! TRY IT! You can truly walk your worries away!
Dr. Paul Bragg opened in NYC, Macfadden’s 7 famous “Penny Restaurants” during big Depression Era. They fed millions of hungry people with healthy vegetarian meals for only a penny! Inspirational music and literature was given out to inspire and guide them.

Dr. Patricia Pays Tribute to her dear friend, publishing guru, Dan Poynter

Many years ago, Dan Poynter was an avid hang glider. Wanting to learn more about the sport, but discovering there were no books on the subject, he decided to write his own. The book became an instant Best Seller in the self-publishing world. Since then, Dan wrote over 130 books, became the go-to authority on self-publishing, and lectured around the world. He was Patricia’s friend and consultant for over 40 years! Dan passed away recently, an accident took his life. He will be fondly remembered in a Memorial Service at the Bragg Organic Farm in Santa Barabara, California.

Dr. Patricia Recognized on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars!

Celebrities, V.I.P.‘s, and throngs of Bragg Followers flocked to Palm Springs recently to honor Dr. Patricia for her life as a Health Crusader. A “Star” engraved with Paul and Patricia Bragg’s names was instated for all perpetuity. Patricia also gave health lectures at several Palm Springs venues, including the Palm Springs Health and Fitness Expo where she spoke to standing-room-only crowds!

“You are what you Eat, Drink, Breathe, Think, Say, & Do!” Patricia Bragg, ND, PhD

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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 Lifetystyle 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 – via email, 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 or 1-800-347-9166 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.

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

Christmas – A Joyous Occasion?

Tuesday, December 29th, 2015

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2015

We are so accustomed to celebrating holidays with a certain emotion which seems intrinsic to that holiday that we generally don’t think about why or if that emotion is appropriate to the holiday.

Good Friday is clearly a somber occasion and our emotions are quite turned down on that day.  The Churches drape themselves in black and people come to Church to mourn.

Christmas, however, is joyous.  Much gift giving and party attending and celebration.  But is that the appropriate emotion for the ‘celebration’ of the birth of Jesus?

The bible clearly talks about and acknowledges Jesus as God.  Although maybe not God again until the resurrection – because before that Jesus is human and experiencing all of the good and bad of life in human form.

Why did God have to come to earth to subject God’s self to our infirmities, sadnesses, pain, sin and more?  To save us from our sins – so says the bible.  Once the virgin birth happens we celebrate the arrival of God on earth because our sins are forgiven – penance has been paid once and for all times with the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus.

What a horrible thought and what an awful commentary on all of us.  We celebrate that God has had to take human form because we would not stop sinning.  Jesus the Christ brought forgiveness of all of our sins.  We seem to have brought jealousy, anger, resentment, and much more as we go downhill with the ugly side of human nature.

To me, it seems we should sit with  sack cloth in ashes beating our breasts because we brought God down to such a low level.  To celebrate the necessity of such an act and gift because we could or would not act solely out of our better nature is but a small part of Christmas.  The larger part is the tearing apart of our garments because of what we caused the God we supposedly worship to experience.  Caring plus Empathy equals Love, some say.  We care about God, but we have no empathy so how do we get from Caring about God to Loving God?  The way we celebrate Christmas shows our complete lack of empathy.  The way we live shows how strongly we care about what God can give us, which is where we calculate God’s worth.  Which is why we pray.  And, if God doesn’t answer our prayers we question God’s existence.

Our self-absorption and self-centeredness overwhelms every other emotion.  We act as though we are God and God is really our concierge.  Suggest prayer is about something other than the adult version of a child’s prayer for a bicycle will bring down the wrath of the world on your head and not just the Christian world.

We act out the necessity of such a sacrifice, the birth of Jesus,  everyday many times a day, even some two thousand plus years after that original sacrifice.  Parenting gives one a little look into the love God had to have for us to do such a thing.  Sacrifice your adult life to raise your children and give them what they need to get through life to its end and what do you receive in return?  From what we have seen – mostly entitlement from your children.  The moments of genuine love and giving are few and far between.  Sounds like a re-enactment of why God felt it necessary to become human for our sake.  God gave us Jesus and we responded by replacing Jesus with Santa Claus.

Buying all kind of presents from retail shops; getting together with friends and too much alcohol; dreading Christmas dinner with the family because it will end in horribleness; and I could go on and on.  We are doing all of this while there are so many people in pain; at the end of their lives and alone not able to pass along their immortality, which to most of us is our life story.  Why can’t we pass along our life story?  Because no one is listening.  Only celebrities and the rich and famous get to do that.

And it does seem to be getting worse, this ‘celebration’ of Christmas.  It starts right after Halloween and continues through January.  Some of us ease our consciences by making an effort to give a small part of our ‘celebration’ to those in need – and generally that is a very small part, usually limited to this one time Christmas gift giving.

We turn our Churches into concert halls for the holiday and pat ourselves on the back as to how wonderful we are because of it.  We don’t do that by bringing those in need, to whom we dedicate those concerts, into the Church/Concert Hall for an evening joining with others to meet and greet and celebrate and form longer lasting relationships, but by using that Concert Hall atmosphere to indulge our need to lift ourselves above the pact with the nobless oblige feelings that creates in us.

The holiday in Christianity to celebrate would be Easter.  However, Easter passes with barely a note, a present, a celebration. Not many family dinners because we go off to warmer climes or to celebrate other than at home and the less fortunate we give a small bit of our resources to over Christmas does not repeat over Easter.

We don’t stop to think of what a sacrifice it was for God to take on human form and all of the pains and vicissitudes of being human.  If we let those thoughts into our consciousnesses for even a moment our lives would change.  We give lip service to that and move on with our celebration.

Having given us 30 plus years – the way we count time – it was enough.  We rewarded Jesus the Christ, for this gift we celebrate at Christmas of God becoming equal to us all for our sake, with a crucifixion.

One interpretation of the resurrection after the crucifixion is that it could be that God was disgusted with the scene he was a part of and after the horrible experience of the crucifixion, took back this gift of equality and of giving an example to all of humanity of how life could be lived with a different set of values, a different character, a different morality and so got out of here to a better place, leaving us with the mess, corruption, ugliness that we created and continue to wallow in because that seems far better to us than to clean ourselves up and act in a way that would not need such a sacrifice from God.

Not the least of our sins is the one which led us to using the story of Jesus on this earth as a way to strengthen sexism – by declaring Jesus’ birth as a male child the justification for the extreme Paternalism and Male Superiority which pervades our Churches.

Next to that is the fact that we took Jesus’ birth and life as a reason to reinforce racism by portraying  ‘him’ with White skin and softly flowing blondish-brown hair.  Would that be shoring up the racism we practice?

This is all such a pattern of how we live.  Didn’t we take God-given food grown with sunlight, air, rain and turned it into something horrible with the introduction of chemicals, machinery to change its texture, color and nutritional value because man could make more money when its sold – bought cheap from the farmer, ‘ processed’ and sold for a fortune to everyone else?

Don’t we continually destroy the beautiful universe around us?  It is so beautiful to look up at the sky; to see the flowers; to enjoy the life giving oxygen of the trees – until we cut them up, cut them down to make money?  And guns? and so many artificial things we don’t need, but work ourselves to death to obtain, neglecting that which is real and of God?

How long, O God, must we suffer the pangs and vicissitudes of our humanity.  It doesn’t look at all changed over these two thousand plus years.  We are still a sinful humanity.  What did your birth change – really?

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Ed Note:  This is a very Christian message.  We thought long and hard before putting it in the blog, but our need to be open to the world far overtook our concerns about printing it.

We welcome other religions to send us blogs on their thoughts, prayers and lifestyles.  We will print them either with your name or without and if you request, we will put a copyright on your work.

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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.

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

 

 

A Quotation

Tuesday, October 20th, 2015

“Don’t Take the presence of the storm to indicate the absence of God.”

The Rev. T. D. Jakes

The Rev. T. D. Jakes

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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.

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

Bettina Network Foundation needs Volunteers!

Thursday, July 23rd, 2015

Bettina Network Foundation, inc. is looking for volunteers to help us move furniture and other items from the home of one who has to the homes of several who have little.

Spend Saturday morning, July 25, 2015 starting at 10:00 am making an impact in this world.  Or, volunteer to spend some other days volunteering with Bettina Network Foundation.  Let us know if you are interested in working with us to bring about changes for the better in all of our lives.

We are given many things for those who are recently homeless and/or are having a difficult time with survival.

We move those items out of the house from where they were given and deliver them to a list of people who are in need.  We need volunteers who will help us do that.  If you have a car that is wonderful.  If not you can pair up with so meone else who has a car, van, truck.  There will be a truck at each location to take things that are too large for a car, van, etc.

It is a great experience.  Fun! New friends! Some experience with Bettina Network Foundation! Are you a student who needs Community Service hours – we can provide you with a letter of your work and the hours you spent engaged in helping others through the Bettina Network Foundation, inc.

If you have access to newspapers and boxes for packing, please bring them along.  Every little bit helps.

Call for more information – 617 497 9166 or 800 347 9166 and talk to us.

Email – bettina-network@comcast.net

This week, we start at 10am in the Arlington area and should finish by 11:30am.

We provide  a debriefing lunch for all who want to join us.

Get to know Bettina Network Foundation, inc. and feel the great experience of being a direct help to those who give and those who receive.

Everyone who helps gets to take one item for themselves from the estate as our way of saying thank you.

 

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.

TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

EVEN MORE VOLUNTEERS NEEDED

Friday, June 26th, 2015

We are going to do two packing, moving and delivering to those who need on Saturday, June 27, 2015.

In addition to the house in Melrose, we are also going to pack, move and deliver from a house in Arlington, MA.

If you have a couple hours, we could use your help.

See the following blog for details on how to join our merry group trying to do a little good in our part of the world.

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Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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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.

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

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

BN FOUNDATION NEEDS VOLUNTEERS

Thursday, June 25th, 2015

The Bettina Network Foundation, inc. is calling for volunteers to help us pack up and move the contents of a town house from Melrose, MA. to several people who are establishing permanent homes for their family.

On Saturday, June 27, 2015 at 9am we will meet for breakfast in Harvard Square Cambridge, MA. and to talk about what to expect – suggestions on how best to handle this move – suggestions for the future – getting to know one another.

From there we will go to Melrose planning to arrive at 10:30am

Please bring boxes and any wrapping paper – such as newspapers, etc. – so we can get the job done quickly and easily – many hands make light work.

We will have a U-Haul truck rented for the occasion.  If you have transportation you can offer to someone who wants to help, but is without transportation, let us know.  If you have a truck which could supplement what we have, let us know that also.

In addition, we will need – going into the week – other volunteers who can work with families helping them clean and organize their homes; teaching them how to care for what they have; and looking around the houses to see what else they might need and be able to use.  Two or more people can work together in one house to get this done.  We also ask that you look in on the same people you helped to get their homes cleaned and organized, in a few weeks, to make sure they are holding it together and the house is still in good shape.  If not, we may ask you to help again, or if the situation isn’t working out, we will ask your advice on should we drop that family from our list of those we help.

If you are a designer, we could use your help to look in on families and talk to them about designing their homes; looking at how they use the home and helping them work through the best placement of what they have and again – helping us with feed back to know what else those families need.

If you are a photographer, we would love to have pictures of the work being done with the people doing the work and some of the before and after shots in some homes where the people who live in the homes do not mind our taking pictures, without their names being attached.

Call or email us at either 617 497 9166 or 800 347 9166.  Email us at bettina-network@comcast.net.

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Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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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.

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

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

 

A Bettina Network Moving Sale

Thursday, April 30th, 2015

Sale happens Saturday May 2, 2015    –   Look for the Bettina Network Flag flying in front of the house to know you are in the right place.

Starts at 10am and ends at 3pm

An Exciting Event Always

Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Members will be allowed in at 9am on May 2, 2015.

The address of the sale is 65 Huntington St, Milton, MA. 02186.

There are interesting items for sale:

IMG_20150429_132608132

 

An elevator chair, which goes up and down the stairs.  The company will take it off the wall and we are sure for a small amount of money they will reinstall the chairs in your home.  There are two chairs.  One goes from the first to the second floor.  The second goes from the basement to the first floor – where the two stairs are not contiguous.

Many of the items we could not picture because Word Press only takes pictures up to 2MB.  So next time we will click accordingly – once we learn how.

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There are two lovely Tiffany-style hanging lamps which are quite old and beautiful.

Dining room table and chairs.  Porcelain dinner service.  Stem glasses.

Opalescent glass figures.  Book cases.  Bedroom set with queen-sized bed – real wood.

Mahogany book cases.  Pine book cases stained mahogany.

Miscellaneous items that will look lovely in your living or dining room where you need an extra something.

Clothes.  Fur coats.  A collection of 1930’s mink and fox throws for over the shoulder – remember the kind with the head, feet and tails intact – well come and see these (No conservationist comments please – this was the 1930’s and there were not many of these made).

Off-white Pinch pleated thermal drapes – lots of them.  The way they conserve heat and cold in your home will make up for the fox and mink shoulder stoles.

Nylon curtains – some with frilly ruffles for just $5.00.

An old sewing machine case – a little rubbing with coconut oil will make this case look lovely.

Oriental-style rugs – one for $25 and it is room size – the second for $125.

Pots and pans.  Kitchen miscellaneous.

Basement items, including professional floor cleaning equipment ideal for someone just starting a new business.  Use these until you have earned enough to buy the new, super shiny, over-priced machines that will take away most of your profit.

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As in all Bettina Network Sales, whatever is left after the sale is donated to Bettina Network Foundation, inc.  A 501 ( c ) 3 organization and the family gets a tax credit for the amount of the items so donated.  The Bettina Network Foundation, inc. gives all of these items to people who are recently homeless and are beginning to furnish their new permanent home and/or to people in difficult situations who these items can benefit and make their lives a bit easier.  We work with Therapists and Social Workers to determine who can best use the items available.  They are not stored they are taken immediately to their new home so volunteers at the end of each sale are crucial.

If you are a Social Worker, Therapist or someone working with the homeless and would like to volunteer to help in this effort to eradicate homelessness as best we can, call us.  We send you an inventory of items available and you let us know which ones your clients can use.

If you would like to volunteer some of your time to work with the Bettina Network Foundation, inc. we welcome you.  Speak to one of the people working the sale and they will give you more information.  It is fun -a good learning experience – and who knows where it will lead for you.  We need photographers, designers to help those receiving items have an idea as to how to place them for maximum beauty, those who like to clean and work with others to help them learn how to keep up what they now own, etc., but especially those who enjoy giving – being creative – finding a way where there was no way, etc.

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Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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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.

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

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

A New World Order

Tuesday, April 21st, 2015

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2015

We first heard of a “New World Order” when George Bush was president and let those words slip.  We want to pick up those words and expand and change what that means – just a little.

We live and see others prosper as we recapture the past and move into the future world order.  Some of us see the past as that place full of light and goodness.  Others see this new technology creating that place full of light and goodness.  We think they are both wrong and totally destroying what they are trying to achieve and capture.  How does that happen?  How did and do they get it so wrong?

We have to go back to the old world understanding that we don’t own anything on this earth.  We contribute those ways of thinking to the ‘primitives’.  Those groups of people who didn’t understand and were very ‘unintelligent’ in their ways of thinking.  Their basic belief was that we don’t and can’t own anything in this world.  All of that changed.  But did it really or only in new constructs we chose to use to define who we are and how we live!

When we enter this world we do so with nothing except the body we take on at conception.  When we leave it, we leave with nothing – not even the body with which we have identified for as long as we have lived on this earth.  So how have we gotten everything so messed up, mixed up, confused and just downright wrong?

We need to go back to accept the fact of who we are instead of who our leaders have created us to be through their mythology – which we have accepted – and look at and accept who we really are and what we really own, if anything.  Once we do that, the Bettina Lifestyle is simple – it is a “New World Order” based on our shared humanity – and a joy to live.

Whatever we receive in this life is a gift and something we own only temporarily.  It really belongs to the earth – whatever that means.  So we should take care of every pin, every dot, every tittle and iota that comes into our possession because it is not permanent and it is not ours.  We keep all of these things for a second and then pass them on to someone else, unless we have ruined all of what we have possessed in the meantime and then we throw our things into the landfills.  Those things we claim to own came from someplace else and are going someplace else when we no longer have use of whatever we have acquired.

Enter the Estate Sale – the Yard Sale – the Garage Sale.  All ways we use to get rid of our ‘old’ stuff’ that we no longer want nor think we can use.  The thought of taking care of our things because we are passing them along in the future very seldom enters our minds.  We are the throw away society.  We use it and throw it away.  And what happens to those waiting to receive those throw away items?  Sorry, but they were trashed, discarded, uncared for because the person using them interrupted the cycle by their inability to recognize their humanity and the need to share everything with those waiting to receive.  We have dehumanized those waiting to receive to justify the way we have dehumanized ourselves.  We have re-created ourselves in the image of the god we created who would put up with our sins, and wastefulness and uglinesses to ourselves and to others.

If we had taken good care of what we ‘owned’ temporarily, and understood that what we have must be used by someone else, those things would continue their lives and would continue to be useful someplace else and to someone else.

Some people can only buy and use “new” stuff.  Some of us delight and cherish the ‘old stuff’ that we find at Estate Sales.  It is like winning the lottery to find something wonderful for a fraction of what we would have to pay for the same item “new”.  It is living on society’s throw aways, but what a luxury life.

Clothes are the best example.  If you wear your clothes carefully, you can pass them on to continue to be used by someone else.  So Bettina provides for that.  Bettina Network, inc. has estate sales.  Bettina Network Foundation, inc. gives away that which is given to us to those who need the give-aways to be able to participate in this society.  How wonderful to find those give-aways in good condition.

There is no understanding of the ugliness and selfishness of the society in which we live until one becomes homeless.  You can understand it on a very small basis as you interact and see the political fights, the petty jealousies, the coveting thy neighbors belongings. You can understand it only so far, if you also have a position which pays you money to work; friends in the same or better position of whom you can be jealous; belongings which don’t quite measure up to those of your neighbors.  Homeless,  you are cut off from all of that and are standing outside alone or with children or with other family or with friends- all of you alone -it is a stark emptiness, fear and feeling of what was it all about and what is it all about now that I am on the street!  But oddly enough, that tendency to create negative structures in which to live is so strong that the homeless recreate the same scenarios only on a different level from that which we find in the society at large.  What stops that?  What intervenes to get rid of all the myths which we have created to continue this insanity?

To be homeless raises the question as to what got me in this place? Did I do something or not do something that I wound up homeless and cut off from everyone and everything except those in my condition?  There are a few people who reach out to help, but they are not my friends.  They are making themselves feel good as a part of their “belonging,”‘  enhancing their position in society; reaching out to ‘do good’, but going back into the lifestyle and the society which created the underbelly of people that are not doing so good.

Why do we throw away our children onto the streets?  Why do we cast our elderly into buildings which harbor and collect all of the germs and diseases one gets as one gets older and keeps them from being seen and interacted with by others – the normal younger ones?  Why do we eliminate youth and family from these buildings and put those who are only one step above the elderly in such places to ‘care’ for them?  Is there something about youth who don’t tow the line and the elderly who shouldn’t be seen with the rest of us that makes us segregate?

As racism subsides are we so quickly replacing it with this form of elder-ism and creating more isms – so we don’t run out and might have to acknowledge our equality?  Separate and unequal now true for the elderly and for our children?

It is interesting that one sees, on the streets, people active until about age 70 and then it is rare to see those much older unless we see them amongst the homeless.  We have to go out of our way to these elder-buildings to see anyone older than 70.  Why do we so desperately need to be better than, that we will destroy other human beings to fill our need to be better than?

Marketing and advertising create the image of being stunned by those over 40 who look good (translate young) – who are not ill – who are active in society.  We just gasp at a 50 year old who looks younger and is still very active.  Corporations almost totally refuse to hire anyone over 45 and we go along with that.  Somehow, wisdom does not count.  And we can see that in how our society operates.  If wisdom were allowed in, and we commonly shared the experiences we have acquired  from having lived many years through much,  that might change the structures of our world and those who are busy creating this horror might have to give way to others who understand, acknowledge and act out of our common humanity.

If we treated our possessions as being with us only temporarily would that change all of this?  If we consciously understood that when we leave this earth we would not even be able to do so taking our own bodies?  Would that make a change?  If we passed on what we now own and use when we either no longer want or need it and we passed that on in good shape to others would all of this change?

As of now, wearing clothes someone else bought and wore and now throws away is not considered great.  Many of us won’t wear other peoples’ clothes.  We expect to immediately get sick and die from some terminal disease we catch in that process.  This need for new stuff and only new stuff has been created by a marketing and advertising campaign which has made us deathly afraid of each other and sometimes of ourselves.  We must feed the “growth through throw away” societal structure.  The faster we can get others to discard and throw away the faster new industries and companies can grow.

Look at this, –  we can’t stand to be around someone who has an odor. That has created a whole industry, which is thriving.  Try it sometimes and see how repulsed your friends and even your family can be if you smell.  And we all smell.  The exception is those who temporarily get rid of their smell by using chemicals which in the long run are harmful to one’s health.  Maybe those products need the addition in their television commercials to list all the bad things they do to the body, if you use them, as soothing music plays in the background.  Your smell is as unique as everything else.  Get used to it.  Can you walk into a room and know any of the people who just exited by the odors left or do you know the odors left by the brand of the chemicals used by the individuals?

We prefer to be around those who have more than we do and we will do some strange things to each other reaching ‘up’.  We cater to those who seem to have more, hoping they will acknowledge us and pull us ‘up’ with them.  And those already ‘up’ are doing their best to distance themselves from those who have less because they don’t want their ‘position’ compromised, especially by the unwashed.

Take a look at what keeps us without an odor – full of chemicals.  Take a look at what  keeps us clothed – chemicals, oil, especially in the middle classes and you will find these  chemicals and processed oils giving off gases into our bodies.  The food the chefs, who now make millions of dollars for the prattle produce, – can be really fowl, only we claim it to be exquisite because we repeat what we are expected to repeat to stay a member of the group.  Once upon a time these Chefs touted Olive Oil as the only Oil to cook with if you wanted to be healthy.  Slowly, too slowly, word got out that one can’t really cook with Olive Oil because it goes rancid as the temperature in the pot goes up and it doesn’t have to go up very far for the rancidity to appear killing all of the B vitamins in our system.

Try life in this New World Order.  Take good care of what you currently own,  with the thought that it will be owned by someone else in the not too dBettina Trademarkistant future and you want to preserve it so it can continue to be used and enjoyed.  Pass your belongings on to those who either won’t or can’t pay the top dollars required of the people buying new stuff.  What is this new stuff they are buying?  Shoes full of chemicals way into four figures; New pocketbooks which show off a certain status costing into five figures.  Instead of landfill, make sure those items with which you currently live are in such good condition they can be passed on to others to enjoy.

Find someone homeless and bring them into your social circle.  Include them in your parties, your dinners, your outings, your vacations.  You don’t have to provide them with permanent housing.  When dinner is over they go back to their homeless state.  When you return from vacation, they go back to their homeless state.  When you pass someone homeless on the street – smile and speak.  When you pass anyone on the street – smile and acknowledge your common humanity.  What will that do?  Possibly cure this society’s penchant for creating homelessness and then not taking responsibility for what we have created.  How? By acknowledging our common humanity.  If I have a lot in common with that person on the street how can I do otherwise than to at least speak.  Maybe one day……………..

As the homeless are more included in your life and the lives of your friends and family maybe they will see another way to move out of the state they are in.  Maybe doors have been opened for them and within them to help move them off the street.

Try this beginning of a truly New World Order and see how far it takes you and us.

============================================

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

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.

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

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

A Bettina Network Foundation Day on the Town

Monday, February 9th, 2015

February 7, 2015 – Quincy, MA.

We had a great Saturday.

Those who volunteered to help us move the furnishings from an apartment in Quincy, MA., to give to others who could use the items, gathered together for a bit of food, conversation, getting to know each other, learning what the day would be like, and prayer.

The morning started with breakfast made by the Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett so we were off to a good start.

Before going out the door on our way, we joined hands in a circle of prayer and it set the tone for the rest of our time together.

The volunteers were eight Seminarians from Harvard Divinity School – gathered together by Jonathan Bett Fields, also an HDS Seminarian.  Next time we will include a photographer – the possibilities for great pictures to share with you were endless.

Cheryl Nicholas, who was the inspiration behind all of this, brought the UHaul truck and oversaw the move to get everything into the UHaul so her job of off-loading the items as she went about delivering the furnishings would be easier.  Cheryl didn’t get away without an injury, but we put a bit of medicine on her cut to stop the bleeding and she and the rest of us continued.  Next time, we will bring a first aid kit, we did need one.  A few cuts and bruises, but no one noticed, everyone just kept moving to get the job done.

Ramesh Iyer, who made the donation to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. was a joy.  His ‘gentle reminders’ will become a part of Bettina lore and will be stored in the Bettina archives.  We picked up his spirit and instead of calling or emailing to say what needs to be done – NOW, we have established the practice of sending ‘gentle reminders’.

Kaitlyn Justus was a wonder.  Everytime we looked around she was out the door with yet another piece of furniture or a very large box.

Farris Blount worked with Cheryl outside making sure the items were in the UHaul properly.

Chavis T. Jones became a whirlwind of activity when he saw a watch in a box that might be added to his collection, under the right circumstances

Ryan Cogswell felt good about the “manual labor” he was doing.  He must have been totally exhausted at the end of the day.

Everyone pitched in to move the first pieces out the door, which were unbelievably heavy, bulky, hard to move and maneuver and turned out to be a godsend to those who received them – beautiful leather couches, in like-new condition.  One piece, that took everybody together to move, was a pull-out bed whose mattress was still wrapped in the plastic in which it was delivered when first purchased.  We took turns deciding how to get the pieces out the door – it was finally all these ideas together that succeeded.

We learned many lessons on Saturday.  Mostly, we learned how beautiful is the human spirit when we are all engaged in God’s work.

Marceline Donaldson made lunch which ended this part of our day together.

We were a very diverse group.  God for each one of us would be described in different terms, but bottom line what prevailed was that which is within us, that makes us know we are all one and responsible for one another – no matter our different physical appearances or religions or other seeming differences, or how we describe the God we worship.

May it ever be so in all that we do.

________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

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.

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

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

 

 

 


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