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FACEBOOK – Marketing for MultiNationals

Tuesday, January 27th, 2015

Isn’t it interesting to talk about Facebook to those who don’t know other than – ‘I am addicted’: ‘I put all of my business on Facebook’:’ I spend all of my time on Facebook’: ‘my friends and I talk all the time on Facebook’: ‘I used to email, but Facebook is so much better’: ‘with Facebook I feel as though I belong’. But it is sensational to talk to people who have a deep, historical, psychological and cultural knowledge of Facebook.

There is nothing like a bit of breakfast conversation among strangers. People who will probably never meet again but are together for a short period of time and who use that breakfast conversation to sort through complicated societal, cultural and economic institutions and/or the development of cultural and social mores. Especially if those conversations are honest with nothing held back.

We had no idea how invasive Facebook is becoming and how indispensable it has become to this society – both to individuals and large corporate conglomerates. It is developing its own niche – especially amongst the young but also gaining ground amongst the older crowd.

We had a very disturbing experience with Facebook recently and started poking around to understand what happened. At the same time we threw Facebook out as a topic for breakfast conversation and the response was electric.

At breakfast, one person said – I used to post a lot to Facebook. I don’t anymore. I only post very generic, announcement things. I have gone back to email, which may not be entirely private but at least I know someone will have to have a court order to see what I have been emailing. When I have something to say to friends, I send them an email. Just think, we used to be concerned about the lack of privacy emails produced. They seem like Fort Knox compared to what Facebook has introduced into society. My friends could send my emails on to others without my knowledge, but they can’t send thousands of copies of my emails to others, which is the affect of Facebook on what I post out there.

During this breakfast conversation we discovered there are several ways Facebook totally invades your privacy. The basic one is, they have privacy guidelines and from what we heard, it is a word game because they don’t follow and apparently don’t intend to follow what it means to have privacy laws.

They will scream loudly at this because Facebook claims to have solid, written and circulated privacy policies – which they do. What is not showing in those policies is that they are subject to constant change and the change looks suspiciously like a company encouraging you to trust them with your information because they handle it with care and totally within their privacy laws and at the same time, it looks as though they will change those privacy rules when enough information has been accumulated to justify new and expanded contracts with the large corporate entities who can use that information to exploit John and Jane Q. Public.

When you join this corporate entity called Facebook, you discover that it is full of people who have given no thought to the institution to which they are contributing all of their life’s information. That can be a horrifyingly mysterious experience, until you begin to understand the lay of the land. How does one discover that? Look into how Facebook makes its money and that will clearly lay out its priorities. We discovered, at breakfast, that Facebook makes billions selling your private information.

Once you join Facebook, all over its pages you will find there is a strong pressure for you to “like” some group, business, industry, celebrity, etc. What happens when you do that? The entity you have ‘liked’ has a Facebook page on which they post much – and what they post shows up on your Facebook page, whether you understood that was what you were really allowing or not when you clicked that ‘like’ button. No wonder there is such an intense push to get people on Facebook to ‘like’ so many things.

To “like” anything on Facebook gives that entity the right to post to your Facebook page and whatever you post in response shows up on their Facebook page – sometimes. It can be very disconcerting to have all of this stuff showing up on what you thought was your private page for you and your friends. Now you realize, it is open to the world and you only have to “like” the rest of the world for them to partner with you on Facebook to receive what you share with friends.

How do so many entities have so many “likes” on Facebook? You advertise for them. We wondered why one advertised on Facebook since it rarely brings increased business. It does bring hundreds of new “likes” to you and those “likes” are what give you access to hundreds of people. People whose Facebook pages are now your personal property to do with what you ‘like’.

Facebook also has what has become a ‘tradition’. It guarantees you privacy; has a very distinct and well written privacy policy so you feel comfortable with what you post within those guidelines; and once you have joined and set up your page you are very comfortable knowing the parameters of what you can do and what will be kept private and sacrosanct by Facebook.

HYPOCRISY ALERT: These privacy guidelines are temporary. Once you become comfortable with your personal information being kept private by Facebook and you begin to reveal more and more that you would not reveal if you knew what was coming, those privacy guidelines change and there you are in the middle of your Facebook page with – symbolically – no clothes on, because Facebook has changed its privacy laws and protections and what you thought was private is now out there for the world to see and use. Well, not really the whole world, only those who have bought contracts with Facebook to receive your information within seconds of your postings. But – you are not fully exposed because you are still ‘protected’ with their new privacy laws. Except lots of marketing and other institutions now have information which you didn’t intend to provide, but which they now have and can use because Facebooks’ privacy laws changed and now allows them to receive that much needed information.

And now Facebook has the possibility of gaining new contracts from ever larger and some smaller entities because those entities can now see how this business can work to their advantage.

Another wrinkle discussed at breakfast is what happens when you sign in to the different groups to which you belong on the internet – not Facebook – but you sign in with your Facebook password. What does that do? It allows Facebook to send to the large marketing, retail and other large corporations just about all of the information on your Facebook page. Information they could not otherwise access, such as – your ‘friends’ and other stuff that is off limits to those individual people who want to join your merry band and who would like to see that info before deciding to befriend you. They can’t see that information because of Facebooks strict privacy rules, but those large corporate entities can access all of it because of your tendency to be a bit lazy and want just one password to remember – Your Facebook password. Large groups can now access everything you thought was private and there are no restrictions on what they can do with what was your personal and private information. Actually, that information is still off limits to the little person, but the large corporations now can access it all – if they are paying Facebook properly.

Another new wrinkle and new opportunity has popped up. When you join a group which is a mini-facebook, – such as is now becoming more common – such as your Church, club, social group, companies you buy from with a password to their site and more – a part of what those groups can offer is for you to link your Facebook page to the information or your profile on their site. What does that do? Think about your bank! It allows Facebook to give them, not just what you post to your Facebook page, but all of the information you thought was private and members of those groups can now post to your Facebook page.

Small social groups, small Churches – Synagogues – Temples – don’t have the IT capability to do anything with this information, but the large groups which you access via a password, but now access using your Facebook password, can post to your Facebook page and those in the group can also post to your Facebook page from the Group’s supposedly closed shared internet space. This gives those with whom Facebook has partnered the most amazing and complete information about you. In affect it is everything you have on Facebook, including any new posting they or others can now make. It is quite powerful for these groups to be able to post to your Facebook page from your mini-group internet gathering place, but even more powerful for Facebook to be able to sell information about the groups to which you belong; the companies with whom you do business; the retail internet places where you buy and why you buy, etc.

I used to wonder how some companies received so many hundreds of millions of dollars to develop their start-up idea. After this breakfast where everybody shared what they knew about Facebook, I now know how one group is selected to receive and one group must struggle. To receive huge amounts of money from ‘venture capital’ groups, or individual investors who want to contribute mightily to your idea, you must have a start-up idea which rips off the public for the benefit of these large institutions . It has very little to do with anything else.

Facebook was an electric idea. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Facebook opened your private world to marketing, advertising, strategic planning groups with the kind of information they had not previously dreamed they could ever access.

The minutiae of your lifestyle; your choice of friends; things you talk about to those you know and trust; your likes and dislikes and how and when they change; what you buy or have just bought and why. Facebook is also constantly coming up with new and different ways to satisfy this bottomless pit of the need for your most private information. You – your friends – your family – your professional associates are all the subject of marketing mining; of giving up your most private information so the multi-nationals of the world will know how to manipulate your desires, wants, needs, to increase their bottom line.

The most lethal part of Facebook is their constantly changing privacy rules, because there are always new people joining who have not experienced the jarring instant change of privacy rules which allows those with contracts with Facebook to gain massive new information about you which you thought would always be kept private. And that information is gained by those contract holders in seconds. You can fight those changes in privacy laws, and possibly they will be changed back – rarely, but it is possible. That does nothing for you because your information went into the hands of those who could afford those very expensive contracts with Facebook almost immediately. And not just once, but every time you post anything to Facebook, it is in the hands of those marketing people immediately.

And we worry about identity theft? That is like worrying about the lone ant when the elephants in the room are sitting on your chest and destroying everything around you that you hold dear. We have created a world where most of us are prey to those who want to use us to be the consumers of the products, ideas, and more that they are producing without our giving thought to the basics of whether the product contributes to a good, healthy, caring lifestyle! – do we need this? is it good for us? will it enhance the quality of our lives or do the opposite? and more. Our payment? The ability to be rendered more and more thoughtless in the way we live through this psychological manipulation, with generations to come not understanding the history of our and their lives and who do not understand that this is any kind of problem.

The information flow continues through our continued use of Facebook and some other large groups like them, as they now stand.

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Tags: bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Facebook, Making Connections
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Martin Luther King Day at Bettina’s

Tuesday, January 20th, 2015

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WOW!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Tags: African American history, bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Information, breakfast table talk, Martin Luther King, Racism
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PTSD – Yes, Posttraumatic Stress

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2014

Our breakfast conversations don’t shy away from any topic. This one dealt with – what is Post Traumatic Stress?

I went to Wikipedia to look up what this means and found the following:

“Posttraumatic stress disorder[note 1] (PTSD) may develop after a person is exposed to one or more traumatic events, such as sexual assault, warfare, serious injury, or threats of imminent death.[1] The diagnosis may be given when a group of symptoms, such as disturbing recurring flashbacks, avoidance or numbing of memories of the event, and hyperarousal, continue for more than a month after the occurrence of a traumatic event……

People who experience assault-based trauma are more likely to develop PTSD, as opposed to people who experience non-assault based trauma such as witnessing trauma, accidents, and fire events……”

Most of us only know about PTSD from movies we have seen, which includes actors portraying people with such a problem. Very few of us actually knows someone with PTSD.

Our breakfast included one person who was trying to recover from PTSD and not being successful in the effort.

Most of us these days, no matter the religion or lack of religion, believes human beings are basically good. Our conversation at breakfast centered around the fact that human beings are mostly self-centered and self-absorbed and have to work very hard to overcome the jealousy, greed, anger, power-hunger and other emotions such self-centeredness engenders to be able to reach the other side where there is good. We make it to that other side once in a while in our lives, but never on a consistent all-the-time basis.

Without a lot of education around the topic; without a lot of knowledge about people suffering from this problem; and without anything else which would say we are certified by today’s standards to deal with it, we, nevertheless, reached a conclusion as to what we thought PTSD is about:)

To us, PTSD transcends race, class, religion, sex, sexual choice, ideology, politics, or any of what we normally talk about. People who wind up with PTSD can’t be categorized by any of the normal classifications that we use to pigeonhole ourselves. We decided PTSD comes from the fact that as humans we are basically evil and only achieve goodness on a very rare occasion. Those with PTSD have come face to face with the raw evil that exists in us and in them and it put them into a reality space, kicking them out of the space where we exist in our woven and interwoven mythologiess that we use to get through life.

We live with the assumption of the basic goodness of human beings and we talk about the evil in all of us as being the exception. We can actually claim, without missing a beat, that all of the evil of the world comes from those few ‘bad eggs’ who cast aspersions on the rest of us.

The problem with that thought is that in this world, evil is the rule not the exception. Even during those times when we reach that small island of goodness, we are flawed.

Once upon a time Christians believed humans were born with ‘original sin’ and that ‘sin’ was washed away by the waters of baptism. Today, baptism has become a social act and a social time. It is like an initiation into a fraternity or a sorority. Many parents bring their children to Church for baptism, have a party after and they are gone until the child becomes an adult and marries. So we see a society becoming more and more inerred of the sinful nature of human beings. The need to raise up a child aware of how hard it is to walk that path away from evil towards good is gone. We can see the results of that attitude by looking at the increase of horror in the world. Our little group could only talk about Christianity since all of the people at breakfast were either active or fallen away Christians, but this is not limited to Christianity. I think, if you look at every other religion in the world today, you will find we are moving towards religion as a kind of physical exercise to move the body closer to physical perfection and theology as a justification of the self being in need of more self-control and self-actualization.

Go back to Hitlers Germany, with its destruction of some six million Jews. It was a horrible time. But we came out of that throwing crap on the Russians who were with us in that war and who lost some 25 million people. We did nothing to raise them up and everything to re-create them as the new world enemy. We worked hard to raise up Germany and those German Jews who suffered loss, but we worked harder to put down Russians and forget about their losses. So we wound up with the predictable – a new enemy to whom we sacrificed our children, our homes, our futures, because it was necessary now to wage war against this new enemy and former friend. We branded and put down people who did not agree with us by calling them Communists and that was a bad thing – the civil rights movement of the time was particularly subjected to this name-calling. And the Communists waged war and trained their people to hate and distrust those who didn’t believe in and accept their ideology. That mentality is beginning to raise its head today as many don’t want to deal with the demonstrations aimed at the evils in our society. So instead of listening and trying to address the problems, we are beginning to move back to that day when those ‘agitators’, who held up that mirror to our faces, were the problem and those who did not get involved in anything except taking advantage of the goodnesses that come from the work of the ‘agitators’ are the ones we held up in our communities as the role models.

When we come face to face with the trauma from the evil that lives in all of us, some have a hard time overcoming that experience, because they can’t climb back into the myth of the basic goodness of human beings. Are the ones who suffer from PTSD the ones amongst us who are temporarily or for the long term living with stark reality? Are they experiencing reality without its covering of mythology; the myths we seem to be able to crank out constantly and instantaneously? Are we good, or have we so shocked ourselves with the extreme cruelty we can inflict on us and others, that we have to straighten up for a brief period of time and really be and do good? Do those who experience PTSD know that and can’t reconcile the reality of life with the myth they are asked to participate in with their family, friends and colleagues? Have they experienced something which does not allow them to do this? Whenever they try, does truth intervene and demand that they step out of the storybook and live in the real world? In that real world, they can’t make excuses for others and can’t accept the same potential for evil they find in themselves.

The rest of us can live with the assumption of humans being basically good. When we experience trauma from the evil that lives in all of us and we can’t escape that reality and can’t climb back into our created myths, will we spend our lives with the initials PTSD sewn into our clothes and drawn across our breasts? Will we be haunted by the evil that can and has come out of humans just like us and just like them. Will faith, trust, love – all of it – be put in a time warp, because we will have seen just how evil humans can be? Will we then be able to face the fact that there are more people in this world acting out of evil than out of good? To live in a world facing that reality must be almost or completely unbearable.

When you have experienced the terrors of the world as anything other than a story in a book, it is very difficult to see goodness as anything other than the exception. Who we really are can be life-haunting for those who have seen humanity in its rawest form.

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Steel Sharpens Steel

Wednesday, December 10th, 2014

Friends and family! What good are they!!!!!

This discussion over breakfast started out with a guest in great emotional distress trying to keep the differences she was having with her mother out of sight, but her mother was at the table and had no interest in keeping anything out of sight. It was a scene that I am sure is played out many times by many different people, cultures, races.

Her mother’s comment really struck me. “My daughter doesn’t understand, but one day she will. By that time I will be dead. — Steel sharpens steel.”

No one at the table understood her comment. If they did, they certainly didn’t let on to anyone.

After looking at our blank and confused faces she went on and we appreciated her taking the time because it was a point of view and a look at friendship and family relationships we hadn’t considered, hadn’t dissected, hand’t even discussed. That usually leads to a great breakfast conversation and this one did not disappoint.

“Steel sharpens steel.” The mother – who I will call Mary – talked about how a child’s future is strongly set by their parental environment growing up. Once grown, that environment becomes set by friends. “Mary’ said she realized this when her daughter was about 3 years old. She wanted her daughter to be a very independent woman. She knew that somehow that was set during childhood, but she worried she would be one of those leading her daughter into the traditional female stereotype becoming the kind of person she had been – fulfilling every female stereotype – weak, overly emotional, a victim in all things.

Mary knew how hard it had been for her to overcome such home training and she did not want her daughter to have to go through the same heartbreaking rejection of her childhood and upbringing that she had been through. Mary said she has since recaptured some of her early life and now value much that she initially rejected, but it was such a painful ordeal she just wanted to spare her daughter that grief.

Mary’s daughter was very uncomfortable at the table at this point because she knew her mother was about to reveal family secrets that she wanted kept that way. And don’t we all!

Ed Note: The rest of the blog as sent to us has been redacted. Sorry folks, we know the good gossipy parts are what we all live to hear, but not this time!

The end of the conversation was quite moving. I realized my own relationship with my family was not what it could have been because I wanted a relationship which wrapped me up all warm and cozy, comforted me, worked out all of my most difficult problems for me and in actuality, kept me in chains. Instead, I had a relationship with my parents, as Mary had with her daughter, which strengthened all of us. The problem is, Mary’s daughter does not understand the gift her mother has given her by being the steel which has strengthened and sharpened. They are both now free to live as independent women because they had each other and maintained that most difficult relationship of all – one that was true, honest, full of mutual respect and which expected the other to be strong enough to withstand their back and forth as steel sharpened steel.

I saw that as an amazing breakfast because I didn’t recognize that gift from my parents either until that breakfast conversation.

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

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Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, breakfast table talk, Making Connections, Spiritual Reflection
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Playing with Words

Friday, October 24th, 2014

So much pops up at breakfast and gives one enormous amounts to think about and digest over the day.

This morning it was how heavily laced with superiority and inferiority are our words.

For example;

sympathy – This word came up because of a Bettina Network Blog a guest had read on Sin.

She wanted our feed-back on her thoughts and she got it in strong terms.

She was contrasting sympathy and empathy. We all show sympathy to our friends, colleagues, family, strangers – we sympathize with many we don’t know and many who are close to us. It keeps us in a superior position to them. Sympathy is always shown between and among unequals. I sympathize with you because there but for the grace of God goes I. For a brief moment, I can pull myself up to be heads taller than you when I find something within you and your life with which to sympathize.

empathy – however is a different concept and a different word. It brings us into equality with our friends, colleagues, etc.

Isn’t it interesting that the word we use most often is sympathy and the word which is not even in most of our vocabularies is empathy.

We stay away from the family, of our friends who have just died because we don’t know what to say to them. We want to sympathize with them, but the right words don’t come and we become all thumbs and stutters and awkward. We have not yet learned the facile way to sympathize – bringing ourselves up above them because we are not in that position of grief. Maybe being awkward and not knowing how to sympathize with someone is a good thing.

If one practices empathy one goes inside oneself and pulls up those experiences when we were in that place and we become one with the person with whom we are trying to relate through empathy. In that circumstance there is no lack of what to say or do. It is easy to meet and comfort a friend or family member with whom we feel empathy or can empathize.

There are many such words in the English language – paired concepts. The most common word of such a pair is always the word/concept which elevates us above the rest. The other half of the pair, which we rarely use, are the word/concepts which make us equal to.

We spent an incredible time over breakfast coming up with these pairs and trying to correct the way we talk and relate. Amazingly, it wasn’t very difficult, it was a conversation and an exercise we took to like ducts to water.

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Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, breakfast table talk, Empathy, Spiritual Exercises, Sympathy
Posted in Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Breakfast Table Talk, Empathy, Spiritual Exercises, Sympathy | Comments Off on Playing with Words

Describe Sin!

Monday, October 13th, 2014

We had an interesting question over breakfast and an even more interesting answer.

The question was – can you describe sin?

The answer was – sin is the lack of empathy no matter how or where it surfaces. The most common way it surfaces is in racism and sexism, but it is prevalent in all areas of society, anyplace where human beings live and in anything we do and in any way we function.

The conversation went on – what is the most painful experience in the world?

The answer was – lack of empathy.

Why? – Because we are all connected and someone showing/feeling lack of empathy towards another human being has let go of, cut off that connectedness and experiences moving off into the darkness and un-known-ness of space alone to experience the cold, depression, addiction, extreme loneliness of one cut off from him or herself.

Does everyone experience lack of empathy?

The answer was – yes, at some time or other and in different degrees.

Is there an antidote?

The answer was – yes, but I don’t know what it is.

The question was – how do we know we are experiencing lack of empathy?

The answer was – by the strength of our denial when confronted with our lack of empathy.

It was a very strange and intense conversation and we hope the above captures it to pass its content along.

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“Do Not Be Afraid”

Monday, October 6th, 2014

What follows is a link to a sermon preached on October 5, 2014 in Harvard’s Memorial Chapel by Rev. Jonathan Walton. It quotes a powerful poem written by Dr. Benjamin E. Mays, past president of Morehouse College. We recommend a quiet space to listen to this very powerful sermon which addresses a lot of what ails us personally and as a society.

http://www.harvardmemorialchurch.org/media/sermon_audio/sermon_10.05.14_walton.mp3

A guest at breakfast quoted this poem in a most powerful way as he tried to sum up the sermon he had just heard. He was especially moved on hearing the sermon since the poem was one he’d heard many times over his life and one which he committed to memory because he found it so moving. What he found so moving was the context in which the Rev. Walton used the poem in his sermon. We thought our guest should turn professional because his delivery added to the profoundness of the poem

For you – the poem is reprinted here:

“Life Is Just A Minute

Life is just a minute—only sixty seconds in it.
Forced upon you—can’t refuse it.
Didn’t seek it—didn’t choose it.
But it’s up to you to use it.
You must suffer if you lose it.
Give an account if you abuse it.
Just a tiny, little minute,
But eternity is in it!”

By Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays, Past President of Morehouse College

Ed Note: Sorry for all the “powerfuls” in this blog. Couldn’t find another word to fit.

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Problem Feet

Wednesday, October 1st, 2014

I read your blog on ‘Old Feet’. I thought it was great. I would change your title from “Old Feet’ to “Problem Feet.” Most women have a problem with their feet, usually caused by the fashion shoes we wear and as the years pass the stress on those feet from the high fashion shoes increases and puts lots of stress on the body.

I tried your exercises and they work wonders. Combined with the exercises – and I think you may have this someplace else in your blog – I discovered soaking my feet in Organic Apple Cider. It was a god-send. I soaked my feet in a pail with 1/2 quart organic apple cider and I could then go dancing in any kind of shoes. And – I have gotten so accustomed to those feet exercises that I find I do them unconsciously now whenever a few minutes turns up and I have either no stockings on or am waiting for some reason sitting in a chair in some office. I take my feet out of my shoes and sit there exercising my toes. (Yes, I am young enough to have jettisoned panti -hose.) The reaction of the people around me was hilarious. People stare, but I have become immune to caring about what people think. I have come to realize that we will suffer much to ‘fit in’ and not be considered ‘odd’. Somehow, I have escaped this and am enjoying my lonely position immensely.

I was exercising my toes and feet without thinking and another woman came over to ask if I didn’t want to put my shoes back on? Before I could shut my mouth, which had dropped open with her comment/question, a man sitting next to me was taking off his shoes and socks following my example. Maybe we can change the world – although that woman will probably be the opposition trying to keep things as they are and us with all of our inhibitions. It feels so great to get rid of even one and realize you are not alone, but others around are just waiting to follow your lead.

After soaking my feet for at least 1/2 hour, not only did my feet feel great, but the rest of me had energy for several days. It was magical the way my feet responded to that Organic Apple Cider Vinegar. I also use it as a softener for my clothes. So I put in a load of clothes, added the organic apple cider vinegar to the softening cycle, put the rest of the quart bottle of apple cider vinegar in a pail of very warm water, sat back with Egbert Tolle’s book and enjoyed a fantastic morning and was more than ready for the afternoon’s activities. And NO! You cannot substitute White Vinegar. It is a coal tar derivative or some such thing and not a substitute for anything. I don’t even use White Vinegar to clean my house. Only Organic Apple Cider Vinegar does the job.

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Tags: Apple cider vinegar, bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, breakfast table talk, health, health and beauty
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Balm in Gilead

Sunday, August 24th, 2014

Who would have expected different guests, not previously known to one another, pick up and read Sarah Lawrence Lightfoot’s book “Balm In Gilead” during their stay in a Bettina Home.

All of our homes have large quantities of books. Host families generally buy them at Estate Sales for very little money so they are able to offer great reading materials to and encourage guests to take a book home with them if they are in the process of reading it and would like to finish the book.

We have such responsible guests that they do take books home and when they return, they bring new books they have purchased the same way, giving them to the host family for other guests to discover. What a lovely interlude!

Lightfoot’s book brought some wonderful reminiscences by the guests. The first days conversation, one woman shared the book with the other guests and on the second day, all contributed because they found the book in their rooms and read it. It was an unexpected gift for me because I knew the family and the southern United States that was under discussion.

Mostly, the book caused the women (no men present) to go over their history rather than critique the book.

One critique, however, was what one woman felt as the author’s anti-southern bias, which she said permeated the book. It talked of relatives going South as a ‘missionary field’ to raise the educational standards of the poor Blacks in the South. That caused a discussion of great emotion since racially the women at breakfast were a mixed group and all but one from the north. That left the poor lone Southerner with only me as back-up and sometimes I can’t be trusted to be loyal.

The truth of life among Blacks in the South is very seldom portrayed accurately. Just like those who most profited from slavery is often skewered with slavery’s Northern interests very seldom revealed.

The Northern women – both Black and White – understood the books bias and didn’t see it as a bias, but as fact. One small part of “Balm in Gilead” describes Margaret and Charles Lawrence, with their very substantial education at top schools not able to find a job in the north and so consequently going south to Fisk and Meharry. The author (their daughter) didn’t seem to know why or rather described the Lawrences as not knowing why. What most Southern Blacks would understand is that -in the day – when you had that top rated education you went South for a job because you were not hired in the North. Black millionaires and other very financially substantial African Americans were Black Southerners or Black Northerners transplanted to the South because they had no place else to thrive.

A veery famous Black New England family moved to Alabama from Boston and worked there in substantial jobs until retirement when they returned to New England and took up their Yankee existence without missing a beat. They moved to Alabama because even with a Harvard Doctorate there were no jobs for them in the North.

There was much talk about “Victory over trauma” – which was portrayed as one way African Americans can survive this society almost intact. “Trauma and strength.”

One particular quote, read to us by one of the women was very poignant. “In order to survive one must confront the deep wound, experience the knifelike pain, move through the zombielike period of ‘depersonalization’ speak about the event, act it out, cry over it, stomp on it and finally emerge from it – usually with a scar.”

“One must transcend. Pain must not be the victor.”

In part of the conversation about Black Anger – “Anger nurtures until you can find more suitable vehicles out of which to act and to love.”

Black male sexism – “He did not denigrate my path, but he blocked it.”

“My mother gave me away to my grandmother.” Since I was raised by my grandmother, when they gave that quote from the book as a way of describing the phenomena of grandparents raising their grandchildren tears flowed from a couple of us.

There was so much more. To get the entire story you must read the book. We recommend it heartily.

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Making Old Feet New Again!

Friday, July 25th, 2014

I love breakfast in a Bettina Home. No matter how horrible I feel arriving, I leave refreshed.

The last breakfast from my most recent stay was great! The food is always good, but the conversation unbelievable. I am going home to work on my feet so I can wear high heels again. I have a closet full of shoes, which are sitting idly on the floor collecting dust and drying out because it hurts so badly to wear them. The shoes I can wear are so ugly they ruin every outfit I put on.

Would you believe old women at breakfast having a hilariously good time about a conversation over feet?

One woman, who was 80 years old if she was a day, had on these really elegant shoes with high heels in which she was going to spend the day. I advised her to take another pair with her in a bag of some kind because she was going to be finished for the day before she reached her car. She just looked at me shaking her head.

The next morning we were all back around the table and I was packed and ready to go. Before leaving, however, I wanted to know how her day went since she was back at the table in another pair of really fantastic shoes – high heels, of course. She said her day went just fine, like all her days and suggested I learn to deal with my feet if I wanted to get back into something other than the slip slops I had on. Expensive flip flops, but no support, no heels and comfortable as could be.

She took off her shoes and her panty hose, as we all howled with laughter, and we went through her exercise regime. We all shed our shoes, but she was the only one wearing panty hose. She said she wears them for the girdle effect she gets from the panty part – doesn’t want her tummy to ‘pout’. We had on ankle length stockings or knee hi’s under pants. She was clearly from a generation that dressed to the nine’s and she still did with a great figure, beautiful hair and my jealousy is really showing since I am about 20 years younger than she is – at least – and she looks younger.

I really don’t exercise any part of my body – especially my feet. Who would think of foot exercises as being relevant or doing the body any good? My bias is showing, but really, I have enough trouble keeping my energy level up to just getting up in the mornings, let alone complicating my life with exercise.

This woman exercises her feet before going to bed at night and before getting up in the mornings. She widens her toes as far as possible – spread them open like a fan – and closes them while she watches television or reads. She also makes circles with her feet going clock-wise and then counter clock -wise moving her feet in these circles from the ankle and sometimes she does the spread-the-toes with both feet at the same time and the circles with both feet at the same time.

We were sitting around the table exercising our feet making sure we got it right. Unreal! Must be losing it because I was very avid about doing this and intend to go home and take up this exercise every night and morning. Nice that I can do these exercises before getting out of bed in the mornings. Maybe that will help me be diligent about it.

Before I showed up at a Bettina Home I was a little depressed about my feet becoming so old and stiff, limiting my shoe wearing possibilities. , so this did cheer me up a little bit! I wanted to take pictures, but the women were adamant they didn’t want their feet showing up in pictures anyplace – so respecting that – and you certainly aren’t going to see my naked feet in pictures, you will have to imagine the scene.

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Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, breakfast table talk, foot exercises, growing old, health, health and beauty
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Food and Pharma Connected?

Sunday, June 1st, 2014

We had another one of those breakfasts and we are all still reeling, having put different backgrounds, experience, education, parts of the world together we came up with a startling conclusion:

The discussion centered around Bettina Network’s attempt to keep Bettina Homes as organic as possible – in cleaning, food, and everything else. We don’t succeed 100%, but it is a constant effort and we think we do a pretty good job – considering all the outside negative influences that press in on us to go in a different direction.

One person brought up the chemicals – especially Potassium Nitrate – in most of the foods being processed and wanted to know more about it. Another person piped up with the fact that Potassium Nitrate, when he was a boy, was called ‘Salt Peter’ and some private schools used it in the food to keep the young men toned down a bit sexually. Well, that wasn’t new. It was something we all had heard from time to time and we all knew the affect “Salt Peter’ has on the body.

Another came up with the connection between the processed food industry and big pharma. The processed food industry was putting ‘salt peter’ into our food supply to give the foods they process a longer shelf life. In the meantime, that was dumbing down and destroying the sexual performance ability of many – especially males – since that is what salt peter is supposed to do.

Enter Big Pharma with their development of the block buster drug for men called ‘Viagra” and other names. Each company which produces it has its own name.

What a pass through. The food industry creates the dysfunction – big pharma develops and sells the drug to address the dysfunction. No wonder so much money is going out of the pocket of the middle class into the pockets of both the food industry and the pharmaceutical companies.

Our question was – what else has such a symbiotic relationship? Was this a deliberate collaboration or accidental? Some didn’t believe in accidents like this? Others weren’t so sure! Others felt we needed to step back and take a look to see how we could expose this early on before fortunes were made, peoples health negatively affected for profit, etc.

There wasn’t enough time over breakfast to solve the problem, but we certainly left with something to think about!

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Sterling and Company

Monday, May 5th, 2014

We should not be amazed when such things happen, but we always claim to be no matter how often we have to act outraged – as though this was an unusual happening for us in these United States.

We are especially outraged if this happens in the north – most particularly if it happens in those ‘race free’ zones called New England and/or California. This kind of thing is only expected if it happens in the deep South. But it seems to me this happens much more often in these ‘race free’ zones.

I’m sure you would expect that there would be a fairly heated discussion over breakfast in one or more of the Bettina Homes. And not to disappoint here is a bit of a summary of a couple breakfasts merged into one blog.

The consensus was the outrage that was felt over the NAACP’s singling out Sterling for a second Lifetime Achievement Award. We thought those awards were given to those who worked to eliminate racism, not to those who worked to make sure it was intensified and the old Jim Crow culture maintained. We must have been mistaken because clearly the NAACP is doing its best to award those who have done a great deal to keep separate and unequal alive and well and functioning in this society. Maybe it is afraid its mandate will leave and the organization will have to dismantle itself if society acts otherwise and we move into a space where minorities and women are free and equal.

Most folks at breakfast were upset that this happened at all. Most blamed the entire NAACP organization not just the Los Angeles group because the National Office could have stepped in and done something to bring sanity back to the LA chapter before the award business went as far as it did, but that national office did nothing until all of this news broke and all were totally embarrassed.

It was interesting that one man took the blame for the entire NAACP organization and stepped down. However, that did not satisfy those in these Bettina Breakfast conversations. Its like a large corporation having its CEO step down for something that permeated the institutional structure and for which many have blame. We think these kind of actions have permeated the entire structure of the NAACP and more than this one man stepping down needs to be done to make things right.

The conflicts and contradictions in this event were clearly outlined and sometimes, during breakfast, caused a bit of hilarity, because clearly without a good sense of humor we would all be insane over such events.

Sterling, being Jewish and clearly of an age where the holocaust would not be foreign to him was one of the conflicts and contradiitons outlined and talked about. Having a young woman who described Sterling as being a “father figure” to her – with the young woman being part African American and part Latina was another very tragic conflict and contradiciton. The Clippers being an organization supported by thousands even after the United States Department of Justice stepped in; even after one of their own sued because of the ‘plantation’ environment of the Clippers and on and on and on, makes a very strong statement about the lack of sincerity towards the elimination of racism and sexism within the U. S. Society by its own citizens. Does being a sports team allow such to fester for so long a period of time complete with awards from Civil Rights organizations to justify and cover-up the muck of the racism and the sexism being so blatantly and publicly practiced?

This was not new to anyone, and Sterling’s attitudes were widely known and had been addressed by several of our organizations, yet nothing was done about it and all of the many organizational structures in place which should have ferreted this out long before the sore ruptured and the pus poured out on society did nothing – the MEDIA? – the COURT SYSTEM? – the CIVIL RIGHTS groups? – the JOHN AND JANE Q public who knew about all of this but still bought tickets to Clipper Games? – the CLIPPER MANAGEMENT TEAM? – THE TEAMS THEY PLAYED …………….and many more.

Since this was brought through our Court System and still was given the go ahead to continue on the path of this extreme racism and sexism it calls into question what we like to parade out as an oft touted structure praised as the keystone of our country’s greatness the “Rule of Law”.

Our Conclusions!!! The United States is very comfortable with people like Sterling. Its just that we don’t want them ‘outed’ because then we have to react in a way which violates our history and brings up for the whole world to see, a reminder of from whence we try to tell people we have come and are no more. Our public story is that we have moved away from slavery of Africans, we have moved away from the Jim Crow society which once thrived in the United States, we have moved away from taking away from minorities their rights supposedly guaranteed to them by the U. S. Constitution and other laws,we have moved away from discriminating against women.

But have we really or have we simply changed the way we discriminate – changed how our racism and sexism is expressed – changed how the oppression we dump on the minorities and women in our midst is acted out – and most of all (the biggy), changed how we engage in denial of everything so we can continue the practice.

We really aren’t that put out as long as we can continue the actions; as long as we can continue being a racist, sexist society.

How does sexism fit into this scenario? What is more symbolic of the pain experienced by and the convoluted ways we have of inflicting sexism than the experience of the young woman – Black and Latina – who sees someone with the views and practices of Sterling – as a father figure. What more pain could one internalize and survive! How twisted does one’s life have to be to find that not only acceptable, but feel that is a great way to live and a great role model of fatherhood! This whole business is sick and what it says about all of us is not pretty.

However, it did make great breakfast conversation. And, as one woman said, at one breakfast – ‘what a relief to be able to talk about something like this without worrying about ‘political correctness.’ She felt freed up and was going to take back with her an independence of acting and thinking in the areas of sexism and racism with which she would approach the subject. Mostly, her experience was a validation of herself as a fully thinking and properly acting human being who was not going to be intimidated in her views on the subjects and would express them more clearly and act on her thoughts and beliefs. We hope that is a good thing!

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

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Tags: breakfast table talk, Making Connections, Racism, Sexism, Sterling
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An Intensely Religious Week

Thursday, April 17th, 2014

Intensely Religious – how do we turn that into – gloriously Spiritual! I hope it is not the intensely religious who have brought about so much bigotry in the world and the gloriously Spiritual who have given us so much freedom! Maybe my values are a bit screwed.

It is one of those years when the religious celebrations around Spring are shared in close date proximity by several Religious faiths. That doesn’t always happen. After the winter we had and after the destructive forces hitting at the economy and the terrorists hitting at all of us it is no surprise that this Spring season finds some of our religions practically intertwined date-wise.

Within all of this hectic ceremonial time – and there is now a lot of ceremony going on all over the place – with its requirement of watching our diets; scheduling around many religious services – there came that still small voice in the form of guests in one of the Bettina Homes. It was such a reprieve and a taking back to what we are all about and what is really important that we found ourselves being really grateful for the reminder.

A family came from England to America to witness to the life of a friend, and isn’t that what it is all about. To take time from very busy lives; to spend money traveling to another country for just a few days to say by your physical presence that this person mattered. He was important to us and our lives and we want to just stand with a group of his friends to give witness to his life. In that small act – which today isn’t so small when you consider that most of us would be worried that our lives would fall apart if we took time out to do such a thing and we could better spend the money on something for our family – these guests and friends, by their presence and the reason for their visit, gave me reassurances about the goodness of humans who can still sometimes come through with what is most important in life in still, small ways.

I am now ready for these Spring Religious Holidays. I can get through all of the trappings because I know there are people who still care and get it right. I am human and sometimes frail and one day I won’t be here anymore. Will anyone witness to my life? Did I reach out and live so that someone will stop and in the silence give thanks that I lived?

We are fast becoming a society where we don’t and won’t take that time away from the hectic busyness in which we constantly involve ourselves to keep from becoming conscious of the fact that we are slowly and sometimes at a faster pace marching to our own deaths. We go to great lengths to cover-up that fact so we are not conscious of our limits as humans. We walk across and away from those who have no home; those who are not so successful; those who are not interested in getting caught up in that busy, busy cycle of life. We can’t after all be around those who would remind us of our own humanness.

I give thanks today for the family that took just a couple days to acknowledge the importance of the life of another human being.

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

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Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Bettina's Hall of Fame, breakfast table talk, growing old, Guest Comments, Making Connections, Spiritual Reflection, Who are the Bettina Families
Posted in An editorial just because, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Bettina's Hall of Fame, Breakfast Table Talk, Guest comments, Making Connections, Spiritual Reflection, Who are the Bettina Families | Comments Off on An Intensely Religious Week

Class in America

Wednesday, April 9th, 2014

We run into this ‘issue’ so often in a covert way we thought we would make it overt and write under the title of “Class” to try to help all of us distinguish between quirks, ways of being, personality…..and class. This will be a serial because we think too much of ‘class’ information can give us indigestion – a little at a time is better.

First let’s make a difference between ‘class’ and ‘elegance’. Elegance is an aesthetic and way of living that crosses all classes, races, ethnicities, financial standing, whether we are male or female, etc.

Class is a definite way of being because of our family, finances, history, country of origin and more AND has a very long history in this world.

Don’t take any of this personally. It is being laid out generally so we and our children can either read it and weep; read it and have a hilarious good time in the process; or take it seriously and self-evaluate – how do we make decisions about the concrete world around us and our way of being in it – spending money, making vocation choices, clothes choices, what we eat, where we go….based on choices other than class. It is no accident that there are crowded spots in the world where we all try to move in and exquisite spots that no one even thinks about visiting or living.

Bettina Network, inc. puts an emphasis on ‘elegance’ – class be damned! But we have had a few questions, comments and great breakfast conversations around this issue, so lets clarify all of this:

Estate Sales are a great place to observe and understand class. They are phenomenal educational tool. Want to understand class better? Go to as many estate sales as you can. Look around the houses. See how the family lives. Understand their taste in furnishings, etc. That tells all – as far as Class goes. You can look around a fairly poverty stricken home and understand quickly that poverty is first generation or long standing. Either the generation prior to the one that has fallen on hard times was from an upper class or the current generation is one of the fallen warriors.

Particularly, it becomes clear if the family is of substantial means. Class screams at you when you enter the front door. For starters lets look at what we will call Third Class English-style class. The house is full of new – expensive – and generally bad taste furnishings. Very little is ‘real’ – wood-like items are not really wood, glass-like is not really glass and on and on. All of the things that the current marketing and advertising people have been selling as “upper class” are present and shows a Wannabe Family or one that is what we used to call Nouveau – very Nouveau.

Many things will be missing – particularly items from the previous generation. This Nouveau/Wannabe generation has sold all of the furnishings, clothes, trappings from their family – as those family members died – and they generally looked down their noses at the items left to them by a generation or more of family. Just about everything in the house will be NEW – VERY EXPENSIVE – in fact, outrageously so – and any antiques will be reproductions, probably from Korea or China.

You won’t find pictures of past generations of family – those were thrown out. You won’t find files of papers with information about past generations, which cultural and other historians would love to get their hands on – those have also been tossed as worthless. The value in this house is on the artifacts and preferably from the top stores in pristine condition.

That is generally, a group of people who came from a lower class family and have lots of shame about their beginnings. Wipe the slate clean and maybe no one will notice or even talk or ask about their family, their childhood, their upbringing, their values. – all of which are copied and adopted from the marketing/advertising media as great style/design that you need to be that person in the pictures.

This group is trying hard to climb that ladder – or several ladders at the same time. Consequently, they have no time or patience for those on the bottom – who might, actually, in many cases be above them class-wise.

Those homes are generally filthy. They look pristine upon entering, but they are mostly the ones which support the huge industrial complex of products which make you sick over a long period of time because of the off-gases from the cleaning products used, and the chemical ingredients in the other products used.

We should add, that what we are describing is the English class system, not the French. That is a whole other story for another article. Let’s call this Third Class English as our discussion progresses on Class. And lets expand this class discussion from America to American plus the rest of the world.

Chime in with an e-mail, if you dare.

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Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, breakfast table talk, Class in America, estate sale, furniture
Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Class in America and the World, Estate Sale Analysis and Info, Health, politics | Comments Off on Class in America

UBUNTU – I Am Because You Are

Tuesday, December 10th, 2013

“I am not a saint – unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.” – Mandela.

…………………………………….If only that described all of us!

The world is pouring out its grief, celebration, joy, gratitude, love for the life of Nelson Mandela.

………………………………………………………..Which has to make you think and ask – why?

What makes a human being rise to such a level that we are all grateful for his life on earth and come out to celebrate such an exceptional human being. Is it because so few such people have lived on this earth, especially when put in the context of the totality of those who have lived?

While most are celebrating such a great man – in Bettina homes we are asking why so few have risen to this height? Why so many human beings have been so absorbed with the mundanities of life that keep us busy and distracted so we can keep ourselves unaware of our irrevocable march towards death? Is it the self-absorption which some of our huge egos demand for their self-gratification? Is it the inconsistencies in values which we carry that keep us from living out our beliefs because we might get hurt – might miss a meal – might not accumulate as much wealth as possible? Or is it our contradictory ways of thinking and acting which we develop in our striving to create the structures which we think protect us and keep us secure, but which really oppress us?

How long, O Lord, do we have to wait for the many to live life the way Mandela lived his? Why does he have to be special? Why in our own small parts of the world we insist on living anti-ubuntu lives? Haven’t we experienced enough of the misery, poverty, pain, horrors that this causes? How long will we surround ourselves with “our own kind”? How long will we live blinded by the fact that we are all included in “our own kind.”

Whatever hurts me hurts thee! Whatever joys I experience grow exponentially when I share them with thee! My freedom totally depends upon your freedom.

One can hear why Mandela was great by just listening to the speeches honoring him. Some were clear, unobstructed by play acting, playing to the audience, playing to their own egos, unable to give a great speech honestly honoring Mandela’s life because they have allowed their minds to be clouded by their refusal to accept and act on their own values and take responsibility for their lives. Some were almost unintelligible and said more negatives about the person giving the speech than positives about the man the speech was supposed to be honoring. True Freedom eliminates that and you could tell whose lives were on track and whose were confused and muddled from listening to those speeches!

Mandela’s memorial services today gave us a stark opportunity to see and hear the differences as men and women gave their speeches of remembrance and the crowd reacted. Some people don’t have images, reflections, pretenses, – they have a rock solid faith, clear and authentic lives they are living and it is reflected in their very being, the words they use, their demeanor around others – especially their ability to be themselves when greeting strangers. Some people first promote their image and then everything else – lets not even begin to be who we really are, that must not show until we know the person better.

Why do so many of us want, protect and pass on to our children, as great gifts, the bondage in which we live? Why do we give up a beautiful life well lived for an existence that others have told us we must sacrifice ourselves to maintain? Why are we enslaved to sexual stereotypes – racial stereotypes – national stereotypes – religious stereotypes? We live out of them. We live for them and to promote them hoping that in exchange we will be able to live physically comfortable although seriously compromised lives.

FREEDOM will come to this earth when we celebrate lives like Mandela’s many times each day instead of once in a lifetime.

We set up ‘sins’ that we must stay away from and/or avoid the perception of our being involved with because that might handicap our future. We don’t set up, teach, preach, live authentic lives. The sins we set up and announce from our own mountain seem meant to deflect us and allow a few to claim perfection in their life’s story. Those are very far from the real sins of our lives – the inability to live authentically, the refusal to feel empathy for those on the street with no shelter from the cold, hunger, dangers of the street. Our refusal to stand on our own professed faith and most especially to give no room to others to stand on theirs – this seems to be the biggest sin of our creation. These are the commandments by which we live and demand that others of “our kind” also live. Our need to act to keep from feeling threatened by those we don’t understand; those in whom we see what we don’t like in ourselves – those we scape goat, and see reflected in our own mirror – we act against and break our own mirror.

As we look around at others it hurts the soul to see in them the rejection, mean spirit, and refusal to live truly free lives. After all, what does it matter in the end? We all die – and what a horrible death to leave this earth with unrequited dreams, longing, loves because you were trying for things that die with you for which there is no resurrection or redemption and which did nothing to make your life great. Worse, to die without ever having had dreams, great loves and without having left behind a legacy which helped change this earth for the better.

Isn’t it sad that we choose the fleeting fame and what we call ‘security’ instead of choosing to be about the business of living fully and making sure we are there to help others do the same?

There is no such thing in life as ‘security’, but we are willing to sacrifice much to attain the mirage.

Ecclesiastes comes to mind often – ‘vanity of vanities………’

Oh for a world full of people like Nelson Mandel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

Not only was Nelson Mandela clear as to who he was and whose he was, but he was a man who never met a stranger. He could reduce you to your real self in front of him in seconds or make it extremely difficult for you to maintain the pretense and image built up over years of living someone else’s imaginary life projected onto your own.

We pray that we all can move away from and cast out the garbage that collects as we live our lives striving for security; putting forth an image of someone we would like to be and who we would like those meeting us to think we are; cast out the values we collect to cover our insecurities and fears; cast out the mean spirit we take on because we need to feel better than other human beings who we describe and see clearly as those less than us helping us to be better than they are.

We pray that we have no more such outpourings as are happening this week for Nelson Mandela. Not because we don’t appreciate and value his life and work, but because we will be living in a world where there are so many like him that his life and how he lived it becomes normal and is common all around us. What a world that would be and what a wonderful place to live, love, work, and just be!

UBUNTU! A future and a word taken into the world’s vocabulary as one of its own no matter what the language. A word that describes – how we live – who we are!

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

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Tags: African American history, Barack Obama, bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Making Connections, Nelson Mandela, politics, Ubuntu
Posted in African American history, Bettina's Hall of Fame, Breakfast Table Talk, Historical Support, Making Connections, Memorials, Nelson Mandela, politics, Ubuntu | Comments Off on UBUNTU – I Am Because You Are

A Thanksgiving Gift

Wednesday, November 27th, 2013

We thought carefully over all the breakfast conversations lately and the one that seemed to be ideal for Thanksgiving was the one about how important it was to sterilize your forks, knives, etc. – especially since we all cook and eat with great gusto on this Thursday –

That has been a growing conversation and it is becoming louder when we all assume the utensils which we use to eat -most, -if not all of our meals, must be sterilized if we are not to come down with diseases from the germs, bacteria, viruses they carry from one person to another.

This particular breakfast conversation had a different twist. Lacking interest at several breakfasts about the great issues of the day and our opinions of them we asked why is the din growing so loud about sterilizing eating utensils? Could it have something to do with the metal, alloys, other materials, being used to make these utensils? Is something being covered up which is important for us to know? After all, our ancestors used utensils for eating and cooking for generations without sterilizing them so why the fuss now?

What was pointed out to all of us was the anti-bacterial properties of some utensils and the lack of such with others; the mythology of the marketing and advertising being pushed out to us with its half-truths, hidden information, unpublished research which could damage what is being advertised, etc.; and the changes that have taken place and foisted on a very ignorant public for the benefit of the manufacturers, inventors, retailers and more.

For many generations silver was used for pots for cooking and for knives, forks, spoons, etc. There was no need to sterilize because silver has anti-bacterial properties.

Today, we use stainless steel, aluminum and other metal, other alloys and plastics for eating utensils and for cooking. That has totally changed how we have to clean and store these utensils after use.

Since we were not paying attention to our grandparents wisdom, most of that good and simple home keeping information has been lost. Add to that this past generation which has been so busy with other things they succumbed to the marketing and advertising mythology being spread around for the benefit of the processors and inventors of these new and different things Those simpler tried and true methods of the past are being lost at a fiercely aggressive rate.

This little bit of wisdom is given to you this Thanksgiving in the hope that you will cherish it, use it and pass it down to your children. Please move away from the technology for a minute. Please step away from all the ads and marketing thrown at you for your use to incorporate in your and your family’s lifestyle and please, please pay attention!!!!! Just a few seconds of your time!!!!!

After all, isn’t that how Martha Stewart became so famous so quickly? She was passing on to us things we were never taught. She was passing along the basics of living in a reasonably cultured society and we were all eyes and ears. Our parents were too busy trying to cope with a very fast changing society. They raised their children as best they could in places where historical role models were taken down and new ones put up to benefit the manufacturers of really questionable items. Our eating utensils are just one group that has suffered from this newness of information. Information – sometimes really questionable in what it says and purposely leaves out – with ads created in song, dance and sex – to get you to buy. Reject that and look for information which passes along truthful nuggets of how to best live a long and healthy life making choices to promote that lifestyle. How do you develop an antenna to tell the difference? Cultivate discernment – a powerful ally throughout your life as it changes and you grow in knowledge with expanding wisdom.

Check out your kitchen. Are the knives, forks and spoons therein silver or some other strange material, previously unknown and which should be banned for eating utensils because they can be dangerous to your health? If so, replace them immediately with silver plate or sterling silver place settings – serving utensils – and more.

Are your pots aluminum? Or perhaps an unknown and untested alloy – and we mean untested over generations of family use? If they are, step away from the stove and seriously consider replacing them. Aluminum became popular as quickly as it did because we were accustomed to silver pots and aluminum looked like silver, but cost much less. Now there are rumors it may play a part in the Alzheimers epidemic and we discover it is used in everything from pots to deodorant and no one really knows its longterm affect on your body. You put aside money for other things – think of your health and start putting aside money for silver pots, forks, knives, spoons, and more.

Estate sales have wonderful forks, knives, spoons and other service pieces at prices much less than the prices for new stainless and other fancy looking eating utensils – at very reasonable prices. Sometimes you can even get a set of sterling in a silver box or in a piece of furniture designed to hold such lined with silver felt to keep them tarnish free for a very long time. They are worth the investment.

You don’t have to sterilize silver because it has anti-bacterial properties which are much better at killing the germs and bacteria and other such things which get on our utensils. Other materials might still have problems even after sterilization.

Go the way which has been tried and true for our ancestors, we feel you won’t regret the extra effort. In fact, your health will improve and you will certainly then send blessings our way.

Have a very Happy Thanksgiving and keep tuned in to breakfast at Bettina Homes to continue the conversation.

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Tags: anti-bacterial kitchen utensils, breakfast table talk, estate sale, health, silver utensils, Thanksgiving gift, Thanksgiving Greeting
Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Estate Sale Analysis and Info, Health, Historical Support, Holiday Greeting, Housekeeping, Preserving Family History and Stories, Shopping | Comments Off on A Thanksgiving Gift

Republicanism BC and AD – oops, AT*

Wednesday, October 16th, 2013

*BC = Boehner Cruz; AT = After Tea Party

The singing reported in the Tea Party’s caucus reminded me of the Titanic – remember? As they went down, those who could not or did not leave the ship went down singing Amazing Grace. Isn’t that what happened last night? It was a suicidal atmosphere with everyone being made to drink the Kool Aid with the pseudo religious environment to encourage those who were losing faith. I guess from the songs being sung there must have been only Conservative Evengelical Christians in the room. Somehow, we couldn’t see Jews, Muslims, Atheists or Episcopalians grooving and responding to what was described.

Many things about this have caused some really great breakfast conversations. If you can call anything in the immediate time before your own financial demise ‘great.’

So much is so hokey: (Kind of the theme of one of our breakfast conversations)

1) The Speaker of the House – Boehner – could have avoided all of this by putting the issue on the floor of the House and it would have passed – but it would have passed with bipartisan support and they refused to even consider that possibility. Is all of this really about keeping Republicans Republican and refusing to allow any kind of bipartisan action, discussion, votes, etc.?

They seem to be looking in the mirror and calling Obama out on what they see there. And someone accused them of racism. How can that be when the reflection they see in the mirror is that of a Black man?

Some sub-topics “My grandfather told me to look away when people start talking the way the Tea Party folks are talking” – such as the comments about their trying to ‘save’ the United States from fiscal ruin because we soon won’t be able to pay our debts. And what do they do about this? Put the United States in a position of a credit default which would raise interest rates on everything and make the cost of carrying the debt we have unbelievably heavy – and a burden shared by every citizen of these United States. How exactly does their stance help?

They bash Obama for not being “bipartisan’, but not being bipartisan is not allowing a vote to come to the floor of the House because it might be passed with a bipartisan vote and that can’t be allowed.

2) Cruz – the now leading contender from the Tea Party for President of these United States in the next election. Talk about disasters and a man either on an unusually high dose of testosterone or whose body produces way too much testosterone for him to be allowed to do anything except knit, crochet, sew, sit quietly listening to lovely soothing music, etc.. If he gets elected, the folks around the breakfast table – including one Republican – decided they would pack their bags, update their Visas and leave until the U. S. comes to its senses.

3) What was ominous was the comparison of what the U. S. is going through with parallels to what Germany went through with the rise of the Nazi Party. It sent chills down your spine to even know there was someone who saw this as a parallel.

4) What was really upsetting was the comment that one person made about his interpretation of what he was seeing being played out. He didn’t agree with the woman who saw the beginnings of Nazi American in all of this, he assumed that Boehner has a huge problem with alcohol and Cruz looks as though he was using that knowledge and pushing Boehner to the wall – go along with us or your alcoholism is exposed to the world. And the media was only talking about how Boehner was acting the way he was because he was concerned about losing his Speakership- have they missed something big or is this like JFK’s womanizing – lets not talk about the obvious it isn’t nice.

And here in our corner of the world was one small group wrestling with the fact that our Congress is acting like Alcoholics, their enablers or have we missed something important!

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Tags: Barack Obama, bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, economic downturn, Economics, Financial Disaster, Government Shutdown, John Boehner, politics, Senator Cruz
Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Guest comments, Historical Support, Making Connections, politics | Comments Off on Republicanism BC and AD – oops, AT*

Going to the Toilet

Sunday, October 6th, 2013

What a horrible title for a blog! We have postponed writing this blog for a couple weeks, but it has been such a great find and the topic of several breakfasts so with fear and trepidation – here goes!!!!!!

We discovered – would you believe across the breakfast table – one of the reasons we think our ‘cultured’ cousins have such a problem with things like colon cancer, bladder problems, etc. It was an off-hand remark by a guest which, of course, we could not let go of and kept her talking about for quite some time (after everyone had finished eating, of course).

The off-handed comment was about how difficult it is to travel in America and in some European countries because of the problems it generates with the simplest things like going to the bathroom. We asked why – especially since we felt we had a really up to date bathroom complete with a toilet seat which could also act like a bidet, close by itself, work via remote control and provide heat or no-heat as the user desired. That comment was totally deflating and one of the few times I became defensive. All the money we spend in those bathrooms and someone has a problem, not just a problem -a complaint?

As it turns out, all that money spent was spent in vain. I had a problem that those of us growing older have and it can be embarrassing – and that is, not being able to control the escape of air from the body at the most horrible times. Nothing like letting people know you are gross without even trying, especially if that escaping air comes with a bit of noise.

That conversation has changed all of that. It took about a week, but after that time frame I have no more problems with air escaping.

We, in the ‘cultured’ part of the world, go to the toilet in a very comfortable way which helps to disintegrate our bodies instead of shaping them up and its getting worse. You can now sit on the heated toilet seat and have a spray of water wash your bottom when you finish. I thought that was the ultimate luxury, but wow have I ever changed my mind.

Have you ever thought of squatting instead of sitting on a toilet seat? It is cleaner, quicker and strengthens the muscles which need strengthening to keep your colon, bladder, legs, stomach and balance in good shape. I used to feel sorry for those third world people who had to squat to go to the bathroom. I didn’t know how they survived such a throw back to primitive times. Well, I feel sorry no more! I can go anyplace, do anything and not be embarrassed by that escaping air – it just doesn’t happen anymore. My legs are firmer, my stomach tighter and even my balance is better. It took a couple weeks to make this a habit and to stop complaining because of how difficult it was to form this new habit at my age, but form it I have and a few others have come along for the journey. We had to form a small support group – a telephone call when we were about to quit for a pep talk.

Today, there are no complaints, we are all healthier for this new way of using the toilet and a bonus – we can use any toilet anyplace and not worry about catching anything the former user of the toilet may have left behind.

Try it! But you have to give it a good try of at least 14 days before you decide. It takes that long for the good results to show up and you will be surprised at how many good results there will be.

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

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Tags: bed & breakfast, bladder information, breakfast table talk, colon upkeep, going to the toilet, growing old, health, Making Connections, no bladder infections, preventing colon cancer
Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Growing Old, Guest comments, Guest comments and talents, Health | Comments Off on Going to the Toilet

Giordano Bruno – A Talk by Alan Powers

Thursday, October 3rd, 2013

Alan explores the life, writings and legacies of Giordano Bruno. Powers has an addendum to his book on early efforts to map the moon. He calls Bruno “The Man Galileo Plagiarized and having written 26 books Bruno lost a University post to a man who had written a small pamphlet – you have to see the video to know who was this person who had the influence to get such a job on such a small academic amount of publishings.

Bruno is also the man who claimed there were billions of stars in the inhabitable part of the universe. He didn’t fare too well with the inquisition, but is still important today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCaC-VexYoY&feature=youtu.be

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Tags: Alan Powers, breakfast table talk, Giordano Bruno, Making Connections
Posted in Alan Powers, Breakfast Table Talk, Giordano Bruno, Guest comments, Guest comments and talents | Comments Off on Giordano Bruno – A Talk by Alan Powers

WOW! What an article!

Wednesday, October 2nd, 2013

Thanks for your article on the Government shutdown.

I am a Democrat who is constantly mystified by the workings of this political campaign business.

As a regular traveller to Cambridge, I stay fairly often in your home. It is quite the place for good conversation. What I appreciate about this article is that I haven’t missed what is being discussed at your breakfast table about the shutdown.

It seems to me that the Republicans chose to shutdown the government on the day Obamacare went into affect to mute the peoples response and knowledge about Obamacare.

That isn’t possible because every person in this country who benefits from Obamacare will be at the polls voting for whoever Barack Obama designates as the person he wants to succeed him.

I hope that will be Hillary Clinton. I was very young when Hillary was trying to get a health care bill passed as the wife of the President. All I remember about that was my parents being upset because after her effort failed, our health care insurance bill went from $250/month to way up there – I don’t know exactly, but I remember the conversations about how we were paying two to three times what we used to pay before her efforts. What my parents didn’t realize was she had the cat bird seat and could see what was coming down the road and she tried to prevent it by getting health insurance passed which would keep middle-class America from having such a huge increase in their health insurance. If they had realized that, I am sure they would have been more active in supporting her efforts. Nothing was done about that until Obama was elected.

My wish is that politicians would be honest – clear – and not only believe in something, but run on their beliefs and attempt to implement those beliefs if they are elected. How many of us wish our politicians were of good character.

I also hope that those politicians who want to act find either Broadway Theatre, the Movies or Television in which to exercise their talents and stop using the American public as their audience when what they really want is to be a part of the fictional dramas we all watch in the evenings on television or weekends in the theatre. I am so tired of bad actors and actresses running for office and sometimes actually being elected. Worse than the bad actors and actresses are those with few ethics, morals and bad character – who seem to proliferate with too many such people concentrated in our group of politicians and political wannabes.

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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.

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.

Tags: Barack Obama, bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Government Shutdown, Hillary Clinton, Obamacare, Political, Politicians
Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Guest comments, Making Connections, politics | Comments Off on WOW! What an article!

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WOW! What an article!

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