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The Next Republican Presidential Campaign has started and it ain’t pretty!

Tuesday, October 1st, 2013

copyright 2013 Marceline Donaldson

What is this government shut-down about?

Don’t even mention Obamacare because that has nothing to do with all of this hullabaloo.  Obamacare is really only a distraction and something on which to hang the proverbial hat of those who have done this.  They are really into red herring when they throw in Obamacare and how big business will be reduced and controlled by this shut down and how members of Congress should be treated like everyone else. That will never happen and that is clearly not their goal.  They are not interested in any of the above, they are moving themselves into the public eye to be in a position – they hope – to be elected for higher office.

This is the new way to get your MAN into the presidential office if he is a Republican.  After all,  didn’t such a shutdown and impeachment of a president result in the election of a Republican – one George Bush?

The way to fight for power and control is to close down the government of the Democratic President and then impeach him.  It was new with Clinton, but today it is clearly the way the Republicans are running their campaigns.  Any issue around which they could drape emotional appeals connected to this new political campaign would do.  And a secondary result – scare away all the good candidates, who are not Republican candidates. To become President of these United States you have to be ready and willing to give up a hard-earned reputation; be ready to accept crap thrown at you without cause; and have mud slung at you on a daily basis. Who would want to risk that?

Will an attempt to impeach  Obama follow?

“Fool me once shame on you.  Fool me twice shame on me”

The government was shut down in the Clinton era by Republicans.  It is now shut down in the Obama era by Republicans.  You can quote Obamacare as the reason or any other reason you want to pull up.  That is totally irrelevant.  Obamacare has nothing to do with this government shut-down.  It is just convenient.  What is really going on is the Republican swarm of those who want to be president or important to who they think will be the next Republican president.

If you believed in conspiracies you could see the meetings during which this strategy was discussed and the decision taken for all to act in concert to bring down the government, the economy and middle-class America.  Any discussion in those meetings about the possible harm this would do to the American people?  Don’t be foolish – those vying for power never consider such.  They consider only what they think they have to do to satisfy their hungering after power.

The guy who read from “Green Eggs and Ham” was showing the American public how competent he would be as president.  He could read to them each evening so they could go to bed hearing his voice reading one of the childrens’ classics.  A child reading to children while trying to manipulate the American Public into thinking he would be the next really great president. Look at what he has accomplished – hours in front of a microphone during which time he either had on a diaper or he paraded his bladder for all to see  how long he could  hold his need to go to the bathroom.  Truly a requirement of a good potential presidential candidate.  He clearly cares – not at all – about the people being hurt through this process.  His care is about setting himself up to run for President and using this opportunity to do so.  Sort of an application process during which he put forth his credentials.

The woman talking head in Congress is probably setting herself up for a ministerial position or the head of a major non-profit when she leaves Congress, if she can’t be a part of what she believes will be the new Republican Administration.  I had to give her a really good look because the way she was dragging out her responses were right up there with the best African American preachers.  She diverged from the ringing tones and singing quality of the Black preacher with  her message.

Joe – from MSNBC is just being Joe – obnoxious, opinionated, totally biased and an anointed follower of Trump.  He just wants to be who he is with the show he now has.  I don’t think he realizes how horrible he comes across to thinking people- those trying to understand the news of the day and the market of the day in ways other than through such a bigoted and intransigent lens.

If all of you let this happen – shame on you!

In an elected government you get who you deserve as a leader.  In this case, several areas of the country have gotten what they deserve in their representatives.  The rest of the country – the majority – have shown they want something different.  Is this going to continue to be a case where the minority destroys the majority for very mean spirited reasons and because their imagination and ability to run a winning political campaign is limited?

I am a Republican.  I have been a Republican since I registered to vote.  I have cousins – long dead – and other relatives who lived in Louisiana and who were head of the Louisiana Republican party and/or were pretty high up in the firmament – African Americans all.  If you were African American and you wanted to vote back then you had to be Republican because the Democrats were off chasing and trying to keep the Ku Klux Klan in their fold, doing whatever they had to do to let them know the Democrats were just one of the KKK guys.

Times have changed and the Democrats, seeing the handwriting on the wall, started chasing after the NAACP, NOW, etc.  The Republicans – who have shown their new constituents don’t get it – have been chasing the KKK guys and their successors.  It was clear in the 1970’s when Reagan was nominated and the four years prior to his nomination when he lost the Republican nomination that a movement had started which was very well funded to do exactly what is happening today.  Make a home for the Neo-cons in the Republican Party and change its image and what it is about. It is amazing what lots of money and very few people can accomplish in these United Sates.

Well today, things have changed mightily.  I understand why so many have left the Republican party.  If you are active, just about any place in the country, and you are not one of those Germany would classify as one of the Neo-cons, but who we call the Tea Partry, you are treated pretty shoddily by all of these recent converts from the Democratic Party claiming to be Republicans. Is the racism in this country so great that you will allow such to happen to bring down the country because you want Honorary Oppressors to deal with and maintain the racism that has been so traditionally practiced in the United States?  Are you, White America, so hard up to be ‘better than’ by virtue of your Whiteness that you will let such a small group shut down the entire government and threaten the economic recovery which the Obama administration has worked so hard to bring about?  Why aren’t you in the streets in protest?  Why are you so quiet?  Quiet acknowledges acquiescence and that is the message I am receiving.  This closing down of the government is not just a Tea Party action – it is being led by the Tea Party and tacitly agreed to by the majority.  What is there to lead me to believe otherwise?

If you folks don’t take hold of your party and bring it back from this incredible precipice we will read about Republicans in the history books and no one will be able to say we know or knew one.  And me?  Everytime I venture out to any Republican event I am so beat up and wounded it takes a while of staying away and licking my wounds before I have the courage to venture out again. Maybe if I were not so aware of history it might be different.  After all, even the Klan had its favorite Blacks – included in their activities.  If I could just smile and acquiesce in what I don’t believe maybe I too could be financially substantial with a brighter economic future because I allowed myself to be used.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Posted in Bettina's Hall of Shame, Breakfast Table Talk, Historical Support, Making Connections, politics | Comments Off on The Next Republican Presidential Campaign has started and it ain’t pretty!

A Stock Market Conversation – about PRHB

Tuesday, September 3rd, 2013

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2013

Every once in a while we have  conversation about the stock market – stocks people are buying – all the things of interest to those who invest, trade, gamble  stocks listed in the New York Stock Exchange, but sometimes we even have conversations about foreign exchanges and stocks traded around the world.

The most interesting are generally those connected with natural resources – gold, silver, oil and the like.

This one is about a small stock we traded before and so were interested to hear it come up for consideration once again.

It is PRHB –  which stands for Pure H2o BioTechnologies.  They are currently selling for $.0001 – so $100 will buy one million shares.  Our ears picked up immediately.  What a conversation piece.  We could buy this stock and talk to our friends dropping our million share purchase of a stock we expected to soar.  Well, to at least .01/share, but we will leave out that part.

The cost of one million shares is the cost of a lovely meal for two – so we will forego the meal and buy the stock.  Much more fun and with some lasting memories.  Maybe we will even send for the stock certificate and frame it for future generations.

The company has a good technology, we think.  It produces and distributes high purity water for industrial and institutional applications.  What could be more environmentally friendly.  They say their water treatment is trouble-free for their clients and they say “they manufacture the highest quality, totally integrated systems that exceed customer expectations and reduce customer operating costs.”

If you want to read more about them, their web site is www.ipureh2o.com or you can Yahoo, Google or Bing PRHB or their name!

We didn’t do a lot of research – instead we just bought the stock because we were looking for a bit of fun in the stock market, which has been great for some lately and a disaster for others.  We thought we would take the fun part and have a great story – follow a stock that could produce millions for us – or could lose us our $100 investment.

Maybe next month we may even buy another one million shares!  Our ears are open for those conversations at breakfast which just might bring us that windfall that the lottery has not produced.

Isn’t it amazing how bed and breakfast can add to the quality of your life!

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

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

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

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

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

TO LEARN MORE 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.

Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Small Business Informaiton, stock tips | Comments Off on A Stock Market Conversation – about PRHB

Live by the Rule of Law – OR –

Wednesday, July 31st, 2013

copyright 2013 Bettina Network, inc.

Live by the Rule of Love!

As a host family in the Bettina Network I’ve met all kinds of people, had thousands of conversations around the breakfast table and sometimes have great evenings with complete strangers in front of my wood burning fireplace.  Conversations which changed my life and have often made me reflect on the condition of my soul.  That is one of the hazards of having a Bettina Lifestyle House – or whatever we are called these days.

None of these breakfast conversations have made me reflect so much as the conversation about the “Rule of Law” to which we hold as a country.

What is amazing about that is we also claim to be a “Christian” country. – not to ignore my non-Christrian brothers and sisters, but it is who we claim to be and the reason today for the great political divide in this country.  We have almost become the country of the ‘saved’ and the ‘damned’.

The Rule of Law has never struck me as hard as it did listening to all the comments on the various cases which have caught the media’s attention of late – Zimmerman, Martin, Bradley Manning, and on and on.

In this country where the Rule of Law is supreme – Martin was killed, Zimmerman was exonerated and freed, Bradley Manning was tortured, tried and convicted and on and on we go, closer and closer to the depths of hell.

When the decision goes against the just and is clearly not justice, we revert to much talk about how we are a nation under the “Rule of Law” .  We tell ourselves to remember that and continue to live under this Rule of Law- even though it is not always perfect –  and we must accept that or our entire system will be destroyed and undermined.  We threaten those who weaken with talk about  the unwashed many who will run amuck and rob, kill, rape, and commit general mayhem if we don’t respect our Rule of Law.  Without it, we claim, we will all be at risk of being harmed.  We are told it is not perfect, but it has created a great nation – the greatest nation on earth and without this Rule of Law, we are told,  we will be overrun with  mad people running around doing all kinds of unspeakable things with no controls and nothing to stop them.

But Martin was killed and his killer was exonerated under our Rule of Law —— wasn’t that mayhem out of control?  Maybe we deserve to be a nation under the “Rule of Law’ because we can abdicate responsibility, reason, sanity, but mostly we can abdicate love – that which demands the most of us.

Christianity claims to be ruled by a God of Love. Christianity claims that the God we worship is Love,  but Christians don’t want that concept to enter into their considerations when making and changing the institutional structures under which they will live.  As a country, we refuse to live under the “Rule of Love”.  It is a great mythical and theoretical concept to talk about, but not to live under.  It has nothing to do with our reality.  But still Christianity claims that Jesus came to bring in a regime which eliminates the “Rule of Law” and takes it to its next step.  As a nation and as Christians, we hold up the “New” Testament which is all about moving away from the law into the gospel and the gospel is about love not law.  In fact, one could almost say Christianity denigrates the Rule of Law.  It is not an eye for an eye…………….it is better than that!  By your fruit………….

I called a friend of mine, also a host family in the Bettina Network, who has these breakfast conversations with strangers about the most intimate things – to try to talk through what has been and is troubling me.  She talked about how the Zimmerman/Martin case exposed the hypocrisy of the “Rule of Law”, but that just didn’t do it for me.  It didn’t go far enough.

Since religion is at the core of all politics I would like to ask our editor to throw open the blog to writings about religion.  Why are you who you are spiritually?  Why do you need to convert others?  Why do you refuse to convert others because you are one of the chosen few and don’t want those others to join? Why do you live under a rule of law when your religion dictates that you live under a rule of love?  How can you claim to believe one thing and live another? How can you define God to be who you need God to be and ignore the reality of God and God’s kingdom breaking in all over this world of ours?   Why are you running around trying to patch up those holes where God’s kingdom is breaking in so the structure you, your friends and your family helped create won’t fall apart and will remain in tact in this process?

I heard a young person constantly bragging about her family.  They had a Radcliff degree – she had a degree from a college just as prestigious – and went to a private grammar schools considered to be one of the New England Establishment’s schools that the ‘elite’ attend – and her mother supposedly came from a prestigious, wealthy community in New York.  It was very painful to listen to her put up this smoke screen because she and they have done nothing with all that background except live in pain and want and tragedy.  This young person has the God-given talent of a beautiful voice, which she trashes on a regular basis and when given the opportunity to use and develop that talent trashes the opportunity as well as the voice.  What is that about?  Raise those issues to her and she will trash you!  How does that happen?

Sin, in Christianity, is defined as the absence of God.  God is defined as Love!  Sin is the absence of Love! Isn’t that how all of this happens?  It is such a huge responsibility and such a huge burden to live under the rule of law.  Yet not only do we live under this rule, but we raise our children to do just that.

It is such a treasure and joy to live under the rule of love.  What a place this country would be if we could move on – out of the shadow of the laws which have enslaved us for so many years into the light of love which has freed us.  That kind of freedom seems to be what we are most afraid to embrace – and so we live our lives in such a small, carefully defined place with those better than we are and those less than we are carefully defined and kept in their places by this Rule of Law.  We give up everything we have, including our lives to maintain those carefully crafted laws of oppression.

We set forth a body of laws which maintained Jim Crow as legal and the law of the land and we forced our citizens to live under that law – preserved and reinforced by the Supreme Court of these United States and today we glorify that same Court without calling it into question and demanding acknowledgment for its wrongs.

We maintain that Rule of Law because it maintains the status quo – the oppression, the poverty, the homelessness, the suffering of all the people who live under those laws.  That Rule of Law maintains the status quo of the wealthy, the powerful, the dictators of high-brow culture, whether right or wrong  – and we consider ourselves the greatest nation on earth because we live under this Rule of Law.  We call it the greatest ever created.

The loneliest place to be in this society – all over the world – is in that place of a child without a group; a half-breed who does not belong to one group or the other.   We ostracize such a person – trash them – try to hide them – scapegoat them for the sins of the rest of society.  We elected one as President of these United States and the anger, hostility, horribleness thrown at him is beyond and beneath all of us, yet some of the seemingly nicest people do it and hide behind their political designation as their claimed reason.  This half-breed president strikes terror in the hearts of those who most cherish the rule of law.  Is that what is wrong with that young person with the beautiful voice?  She lives with a mother who holds up her “Yankee” history as great, while her children look on as half-breeds and incorporate into their souls their brokenness and inadequacy because they are not such a great and glorious part of this New England Establishment?

If you live, even partially under the Law of Love it shows – in how you look; in how you take care of yourself; in how you relate to others; in how you take on the responsibilities of being a part of a whole, in how you are not afraid to speak truth.  Every minute of every day it shows and those around you see it.  God is Love – not Law.  Law cannot be fair and just.  It was created by all of us and it embodies all of our sins, our flaws, our weaknesses, our biases and then those who most benefit from this Rule of Law throw in the demand that we all live by it or be negatively judged by it.

We expect and demand that Rule of Law to maintain a society in which we are judged and agree to be judged by a Rule of Law set in place to maintain the privileges of those in control and maintain the oppression of those who are under the heavy foot of the privileged.

God forgive us!

I nominate this Rule of Law for Bettina’s Hall of Shame!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Posted in Bettina's Hall of Shame, Breakfast Table Talk, Historical Support, Making Connections, Thought for the Day | Comments Off on Live by the Rule of Law – OR –

A Guest Responds – Popcorn and Mosquitos

Sunday, July 28th, 2013

Thank you for the recipe for an exceptional snack.  I tried it and it was sensational.

I had to make two tries before I got it right. The main problem was keeping the popcorn crisp while adding the simple syrup and the chocolate.  I messed up the first try and had soggy popcorn.  The second try it was perfect.  I let the syrup cool a bit before pouring it over the popcorn.  Hot simple syrup right off the stove is guaranteed to give you a mess.  The same thing with the chocolate.  I added heavy cream to the chocolate chips while melting them, stirred the pot until it was all blended and when cooled a bit, added it on top of the simple syrup and the popcorn.  I think the experience of doing this is actually what made it work the second time.  I was too anxious with my first try and thought I knew it all the first time I made this snack.  The blog read like it would be a snap.  Once you figured out how to keep the popcorn crisp through the entire process and into the eating of this snack, it was a snap.  But until then it was a worry.

When I melted the chocolate chips and poured them over the popcorn, it was a bit stiffer then when I added heavy cream to the chocolate while it was melting.  The chocolate, with heavy cream added did not harden on top of the popcorn, which added to the texture and taste of this fantastic snack.  I suspect whichever way you use the chocolate it will be a matter of personal taste.

The snack lasted about two minutes and I made lots for just three people.

My second comment is about mosquitos.  I’ve read lots this season about what to do to fend off mosquito attacks – from staying inside when its dawn and dusk to all kind of remedies.

One I got from a stay in a Bettina home, which I haven’t found on your blog, worked.  It has been tremendous for me and my children.  Vitamin B1.  We take one Vitamin B1 capsule before going out – about 15 minutes to 1/2 hour before going outside and whether its high sun or dawn or dusk we have had no mosquito bites.  According to the breakfast where I picked up this tip, your skin would smell like mosquito repellant even though the only thing you did was to take this one Vitamin B1 tablet.  Sure enough, my skin smells like mosquito repellant.  When I get that odor I know I am good to go outside for several hours.

Hope this helps someone!

Ed. Note:  The blog recipe the guest is referring to is:  An Incredible Snack – Bettina Style, published May 28, 2013 and can be found categorized in Bettina’s Blog under Bettina’s Cookbook

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Posted in Bettina's Cookbook, Breakfast Table Talk, Guest comments, Reader Feedback, Uncategorized | Comments Off on A Guest Responds – Popcorn and Mosquitos

A Bettina Guest Comments on Zimmerman-Martin

Wednesday, July 17th, 2013

You don’t have to copyright my comment!  It is free to whoever wants to use it.

I’ve been a guest at Bettina homes for many years.  My regret is that I was not at the home in Harvard Square to be a part of the discussions that I know took place over this trial and its verdict.  They have some really unbelievable conversations – especially on race.  So, I have to join the conversation via email.  I understand,as a former guest in the network, my comments are accepted for Bettina Network’s Blog?  If not, let me know.  If yes, I will see it published – except, like most people, please don’t publish my name.  I am not afraid of backing up my comments, I just don’t want anyone to pick up my name and start to harrass me.

My contribution to the conversation comes from listening to the juror.  It was clear racism was deeply embedded in the jury deliberations. In the USA denial is the way racism continues and the way folks are able to go to Church on Sundays and feel good about themselves even when they have participated in some really low-down racism.  They neither own up to nor are they even conscious of their sin.  In this case, I think they were – the tears show some unconscious understanding of what they were doing.  The juror saw Zimmerman very positively and could relate to him.  Martin, however, in her comments, deserved what he got.  How dare a Black man think he could question being stalked and treated in a demeaning way by someone like a Zimmerman.  Afterall, Zimmerman was the neighborhood watch person – Martin was the hoodie wearing ‘punk’ – according to Zimmermans description.  She said, she felt he was fully repentant and would be careful with his gun in the future.  I wonder if that is true – or if he got the taste of celebrity from killing a Black man and will want more?  So he becomes even more reckless and irresponsible with his gun.  There are always two sides and her and the jury’s racism only allowed them to see the side which cast Zimmerman in a positive light and Martin as a stereotype.  Her comments about Martin, as she quoted Zimmerman, were of a man looking in windows and clearly as someone who did not belong in the neighborhood because he was Black.  Has anyone explained to her and the rest of the jury the definition of profiling?  By the way, how could she quote Zimmerman who he did not testify at trial?

If you had any doubts that the Martin-Zimmerman decision was racist,or that the make-up of the jury was crucial to getting Zimmerman exonerated by the State of Florida, her comments erase those doubts.

I think this was a done deal before the trial – and I am not alone in that opinion.  The Department of Justice was considering filing charges against Zimmerman because the State of Florida was refusing to do so (by dragging its feet).  I think when they discovered the DOJ was coming, the State of Florida got its act together and started this trial, but did not intend for it to be a fair trial.  A public show so DOJ didn’t come in to get a conviction after they covered for this neighborhood watch person for almost two months.  To go forth with the kind of jury they picked – and to look at the history of convictions of Blacks in Florida and the refusal of the Florida prosecutors to charge some Blacks under the ‘Stand your Ground’ law – I don’t see how Trayvon Martin could get any kind of justice.  It was a clear stacked deck before the case even started to be tried.

Thanks for the platform!

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

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

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

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

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Please ask your readers to sign the petition

Monday, July 15th, 2013

Thank you for your writings about the Trayvon Martin – George Zimmerman encounter.  It was special and I learned a lot.  You said everything I wanted to say.

The NAACP has a petition on its web site which you can sign asking that the Department of Justice file a case against George Zimmerman, who violated Trayvon Martin’s right to life.

You can sign this petition at

www.naacp.org/page/s/doj-civil-rights-petition

you may have to go back to the site several times because it has been overloaded with people trying to sign the petition. Be persistent – don’t give up – keep going back to the site until you are able to sign the petition.

All of Us At Bettina’s

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Martin-Zimmerman and they Followed Historical Patterns

Sunday, July 14th, 2013

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2013

Don’t you know, just about every table talk conversation today is about the Zimmerman/Martin case and practically every sermon in many different denominations and religions includes some reference to it.

This is our contribution to the conversation:

1) George Zimmerman was not tried by a jury of his peers.  Wasn’t it in the 1960’s and 1970’s that lawsuits abounded because Blacks were tried by all-White juries and those law suits proved that the results of such cases had nothing to do with justice and more to do with allowing the racism of the society penetrate and skewer Court decisions?

Lawsuit after Lawsuit proved that and change happened – until now!

How is it then, that a jury of five white women with white children and one minority woman who the press has never identified as to race – sometimes she was Black, sometimes she was Hispanic – is a jury of Zimmermans’ peers.  This decision had nothing to do with justice and this jury did nothing except let the racism and sexism of this society enter the Court system through the front door with a special escort to make sure those twin isms knew where to go.

When one reflects on the fact that the children were White and the women were going to consider this case from the biased perspective not of – what if your child was Black and went to the local grocery store wearing a hoodie or just went to the grocery store in his neighborhood where there was an overzealous, out-of-control neighborhood watch person out there on the street; but what if your child was the White kid named some form of Zimmerman who had to go through a trial because he was doing what he claimed was his job and felt perfectly justified in shooting Trayvon Martin to death after the neighborhood watch person provoked the incident which allowed him to do this huge violence against another human being?

Zimmerman was not charged for 45 days after the fact.  Who said “justice delayed……………”  What happened in those 45 days?  When someone confesses to shooting someone to death, there is an immediate arrest in this system because the evidence is subject to be skewered, disappear, witnesses tampered with and on and on and on.

2) George Zimmernan was a neighborhood watch person.  There were many comments that he was a wannabe policeman, but those comments from the media seemed put out there only to cover the ugly facts of what happened.  Why is a neighborhood watch person in the street in his car watching for ‘trouble’ with a gun?  Was he trained in the use of a gun?  Did he have to make regular trips to the shooting range to make sure he knew how to shoot a gun and his skills were up to where they should be?  Was he ‘fit’ in the way police and other law enforcement officers have to be, in addition to keeping up their skills with their weapons?  Had he been vetted psychologically to know he was able to be responsible with a gun in this neighborhood watch job?  Was he encouraged to carry a gun by law enforcement?  Why was he not immediately removed from this neighborhood watch duty when it was clear he was not sure of his own ability to fight off any possible attack on himself  without the use of a gun?  I didn’t hear any of these questions raised.

Zimmermans’ personality – character – ethics – kept him from following orders from those who knew better and advised him as to what to do.  To ignore those orders, get out of his car to stalk a Black man in a ‘hoodie’ after telling the police who this Black man was using very  negative racist and demeaning terms is a personality, character and ethics exposure. This could not have been the first time this side of Zimmerman was exposed to those who elected him or allowed him to be the neighborhood watch person.  What was their motive to ignore these warning signs and allow him out with his gun.

Zimmerman is a man whose own defense witnesses said could not fight – he was too fat to defend himself in a fist fight on the street.  He couldn’t punch, etc.  He must have been very insecure being a neighborhood watch person – why else was carrying a gun?  He knew his limits and he knew his temper – is that what made him so quick to pull the trigger?  That is a very insecure person who is looking for trouble when he goes out on a job where he is supposed to be simply a neighborhood watch person observing the neighborhood for signs of trouble and if he saw possible problems, his ‘job’ was to alert the police.

With a gun, Zimmerman was not an ‘observer’ who would quickly alert the real police to trouble.   He was someone who was armed and ready and willing to use his weapon at the least provocation. He has shown that is true by his actions against Trayvon Martin.  Zimmerman was ready to use his weapon and to provoke an incident during which he could use his weapon – which he did.  In the Mafia he would be a made man.  In the gang world, he would be welcomed as a member, in the Florida police force ………………?

Has Zimmerman now overcome his half-breedness and is now welcomed into the arms of the majority group?  Is this what it takes for a half-breed to become a full-fledged accepted White Person?  Zimmerman didn’t make it by birth, but he has absolutely shown he is ready to take his place in a racist, sexist, classist system which  is prone to violence against its minorities and is against giving its minorities justice in its court system.  Review cases over the past years and see what you come up with!  When the jury has spoken, justice has been served.  No one commentating on this case has been willing to say other than the jury system has delivered justice.  A jury system has delivered that kind of justice to a whole lot of Black folks over the generations – are we dissembling to take attention away from that fact?  Are we throwing out a red herring to get folks to look in every place except at the truth?

3)  We are all being told the jury has spoken and justice has been served because we are the best nation in the world and our justice system is the best there is!!!!!!!  Tell that to the generations of African Americans who have been through our justice system and have seen results come through like Plessy vs Ferguson and a whole lot more.  I could go on here and take time to list pages of such cases in which the same kind of justice we have just seen is traditional in this country when African Americans are involved.

When has this country’s justice system ever convicted a White man for the murder of a Black man?  And clearly Zimmerman was White.  His mother may have been hispanic or some other kind of minority, but his father was White and that is the determination in this country.  He stands up as a White man and is respected as such.

4) This great system of justice will now reward Zimmerman and he is the man of the hour – he will shortly be the multi-millionaire of the hour as the offers pour in.  I heard talk that his brother may even benefit since the media is talking up how ‘professional’, how ‘well spoken’ is his brother. All we could say is – how self-serving was his brother and how unbelievably horrible in the way he mocked what happened and put himself and his family on that top line where we are the best, most caring people in the world.  A family that has produced a George Zimmerman has lots of problems the brother has not let slip out.

All on the back of Trayvon Martin.  Trayvon Martin’s life was taken so this man can succeed.  Zimmerman followed the book, written over the generations – the racist, ugly names; the provoked violence for which the Black is blamed, the holier than thou attitude at the end, that the Zimmerman family seems schooled in……………….   This name calling and showing the spite and vicious racist attitude the Zimmermans have towards African Americans has been slathered over and will soon be buried deep under everything else.  Just the fact that the arguments in court were around who was the aggressor says the red herring had already been thrown and Zimmerman was a free man.  After Zimmerman started the fight – the court argument takes up at the point where they could picture Martin as the aggressor and all is well – the jury acquits and justice is served.  For who? Certainly not for the African Americans in this country.  This was a case about racial profiling which resulted in the death of an African American and the courts’ have said ‘ justice was served because the African American was the ‘aggressor’ – and now let the real aggressor go free.

5) The aggressor was clearly George Zimmerman.  Trayvon Martin was going home from the store – he was not breaking into a neighborhood where he did not belong, he was going back to his father’s house.  This 17 year old child, who had never been in trouble of any kind, had an exemplary record, was going home and was followed and threatened by one George Zimmerman who then shot and killed him and there was a question in the trial as to who was the aggressor!  Well – who was the African-American!  In this society, in its criminal justice system,  there is no question that in that circumstance the Black man was the aggressor – let the facts be selectively chosen to prove this case – AND THEY WERE.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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Helping you Keep Cool in the Heat!

Wednesday, July 10th, 2013

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2013

Do you have a difficult time coping with the heat and high humidity?  A recent breakfast conversation around a Bettina Network table just might come to your rescue!

We can’t guarantee results, but this breakfast conversation was intriguing and we tried the suggestions.  It worked for us.  Which reminds me, if you want to be one of those who tests suggestions from Bettina Network breakfast conversations, let us know, we will send you the conversation and you send us your results.

There were many suggestions on how to deal with the heat and high humidity.  The one which intrigued us was the massage with Organic Aloe Vera Gel and Juice.  We’ve heard that before and may have written about it, but given the weather around the country we thought we would take a flyer and risk repeating ourselves.

Everyone has their favorite thing to do when the temperature rises.  We heard about hot tea on a hot day to cool off! We heard about sitting in front of the refrigerator with the door open – one we would not recommend.  We heard about taking hot showers so you could come out of the shower and cool off.  But the Organic Aloe Vera Gel and Juice worked for us.

Take a shower – warm, not hot.  No soap please, just plain water.

After the shower and after you dry off, give yourself a massage with the Organic Aloe Vera Gel and Juice.  You will find it is cool to begin with and as you give yourself a massage you will feel yourself begin to cool down.  If you do this before bed you will sleep comfortably or you can even give yourself a massage, get dressed and go out.  No, you don’t have to rinse it off.

How to find Organic Aloe Vera Gel and Juice?  We tried several and wound up liking the  “Lakewood” brand best.

I went crazy and also massaged my hair and scalp with the Aloe Vera Gel.  Since I was not going out I took the risk of looking horrible to everyone who came into the house if things didn’t work with the Aloe Vera Gel.  I was pretty sure it would not make my hair fall out, but I wasn’t sure about anything else.  I know a couple people in the Bettina Network have tried it, but haven’t shared their trials or results with me.

It worked beautifully.  I have been looking for something organic to give my hair a fuller look since it is starting to thin. This accidental side effect of this experiment worked perfectly.  I added a bit of organic, virgin, expeller pressed coconut oil and that gave a tiny bit of a sheen that I liked.  The two are a perfect combination.  Since then, I also tried clipping a capsule of vitamin E into my hand and massaging it on top of the Organic Aloe Vera Gel and that worked even better.  Which one to use, I think, is probably dependent upon the texture of your hair and how dry or how oily it is.

Another version discussed was Organic Aloe Vera Gel with an infusion of peppermint.  Not only did we find this combination cooling, but it gave us a nice smell during the day – and it is difficult to smell great on a hot day.  Either you try perfume and alienate everyone you come in contact with or you use nothing and maybe you will or won’t make it through the day.

Being a child of the heavy marketing that has gone on over the past few decades, and having been gullible enough to buy their messages it took a while for me to realize they were  selling you the same product in different packages and under different brand names and at different prices, I have developed a horror of smelling and a need to be ‘clean’ – television commercial ‘clean’.   I’ve used every tooth paste, deodorant, lotion, perfume, hair product, etc. that has been advertised to be the person pictured in the marketing and advertising. In the long-run, however, that only hooked me into spending money for nothing except to hurt my health, slowly, over a long period of time, but hurtful nevertheless.   First I was paranoid about having a bad body odor, now it is about just smelling at all.  I even give ugly looks to people who smell of very expensive perfume and other products guaranteed to give you a body-smell-good day if you pay the very high price for the products.  When you think about it, their high price is totally justified because they have to pay for the product ingredients (about 3% of the total price) and that huge marketing and advertising bill.

The only substances we used besides the Organic Aloe Vera Gel and Juice was our favorite Organic Apple Cider Vinegar splashed under the arm in the arm pits.  I wasn’t ready to take a chance of the Aloe Vera Gel alone taking on the job of keeping me smelling nice and fresh on a hot and very active day.  It might have been able to do that, but someone else will have to try that experiment.  My apple cider vinegar splashed on top of the Aloe Vera Gel worked the entire day with not even a hint of a smell.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Dr. Oz – Breakfast Conversation

Monday, June 24th, 2013

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2013

Considering we are a network which tries hard to be as organic as possible – which means in food, lifestyle, building structures, etc. – it was quite something to be a part of a breakfast conversation which resulted in all saying they were turning off Dr. Oz and his television program and anything he says.

This came from a television program in which he talked about Alzheimer’s and about metals as being looked at as possible causes and naming those metals – iron, zinc, copper – and – another program in which he dissed supplements.

Why did those two things cause so much conversation?  It wasn’t about the organic things he talks about, but by the fact – as this group took it – that he galvanized many who were looking for information on how to live more organically and is now using that group to promote the agenda of the worst of those who brought us to this impasse of much money spent and no results, – or rather, much profits being pocketed by a few who leave the many ill, troubled and in dire circumstances.

Let me summarize the conversation:

It started because of conversation about aluminum and its being one of the possible causes of Alzheimer’s.  We were talking about the fairly controversial Bettina Network blog suggesting that we all give up deodorants and anti-perspirants because they work by clogging our underarm pores with aluminum, etc. – read that blog for more information.  One person let loose because she was fairly angry at Dr. Oz and felt he had led her down the ‘primrose path’ only to misuse her following of his programs to promote himself and get lots of money from the large corporations and big pharma.  She talked about this program in which he attributed the increase in Alzheimer’s to our use of Zinc, Iron and Copper and that he and his invited guests strongly advised that we stop using iron and copper pots and use very little zinc.  Her point was that no one uses copper pots in which to cook foods; iron pots have been used for generations with no increase in Alzheimer’s; and zinc has been great whenever she threatens a cold or other such infection and why was he so intentionally silent on aluminum.

The conversation was heated:  Copper is used on the bottom of pots to make the heat more even and outside some other kinds of kitchen utensils, but copper would not withstand being used on the inside of a pot for cooking.  So what did using those kind of copper utensils have to do with Alzheimer’s, since we didn’t have direct contact with the copper used on pots and besides, she said, he totally made no mention of what we believe to be the main cause of Alzheimer’s, which is our overuse of Aluminum, especially in pots – in which we directly cook foods which are in direct contact with aluminum and add to that  all of the aluminum products which our bodies take in like deodorants and anti-perspirants.  To totally eliminate aluminum from such a conversation when the research shows it is probably implicated was a real clue that maybe Dr. Oz isn’t as free of taking support, in exchange for protecting those from whom he takes it, as most of us think.

There was – especially-  a lot of response to his including iron pots since iron pots have been used for generations – hundreds of years – without any indication that using these iron pots was increasing Alzheimer’s.  Alzheimer’s did not become a problem until recently and the time line for the increase in Alzheimer’s totally lines up with the introduction of those Aluminum pots into general use in the 1950’s.  A set of such pots were a great wedding present and many people still use the pots given to them decades ago when they married.

The second irritation that came out, as the conversation heated up, was Dr. Oz’s show on supplements.  What made lots of people deride Dr. Oz and where he is coming from were those who knew that supplements were coming up for a vote, in the U. S. Congress, just days after Dr. Oz’s show dissing them and talking about how dangerous some could be and how useless were others and intimating that we needed a doctors advice or prescription for supplements and the FDA’s regulation of them.  The claim that supplements should be regulated – is an old story – and Dr. Oz giving the case in favor of such regulation, in that time frame,  showed exactly where he is coming from and the interests with whom he is aligned.  The time frame in which his show discussed supplements looked to us as another political outlet for the arguments for doctor and FDA intervention.  We know about budgets being allotted for such political issues and apparently, Dr. Oz was included in that budget.

That was a total misuse of his audience – both those physically present and his television viewers.

His show should start each segment by acknowledging to whom he owes allegiance and what he has been paid by the industries being touted – and that payment in any form.

We all agreed to lock out his shows and most of us had been Dr. Oz devotees.  We felt used, abused, sold-out and that done under the table.

Good-bye Dr. Oz.  You were great for awhile, but the public is a lot more astute than given credit.  It may take a while, but we do catch on and move on.  So many has-beens, and if we have our way, that will also be your road – a dead-end constructed by an intelligent, astute, understanding  world-wide public.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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An Incredible Snack – Bettina Style

Tuesday, May 28th, 2013

copyright 2013 Bettina Network, inc.

We discovered an unbelievable snack as we roamed the country looking for families/individuals wanting to use their houses for bed & breakfast.

It is basically popcorn, but such popcorn should be the food of the gods.

First – in a saucepan, preferably glass i.e. A Corning pot – put one cup organic turbinado sugar and one cup water with a little piece of organic ginger root.  Bring this to a boil and let it summer until you have reached 240 degrees on a candy thermometer.  Don’t stir this – even when you first put in the water and sugar just let it heat up and bubble, it does not need you to do anything to it, especially stirring.

Second – in a hot air popcorn popper, put the requisite amount of organic unpopped corn and plug it in. Let the popcorn popper work until almost all of the popcorn is popped.  If you don’t have a hot air popcorn popper use a kettle popper or whatever you have.  We use the hot air popcorn popper because it does not take any oil to pop.  Hot air does the trick.

Third – let the syrup cook a bit and then carefully pour the sugar syrup over the popcorn.

Fourth – Let this cool

Fifth – melt organic chocolate and/or cacao either in a double boiler or carefully in a glass pot on top of the stove.  If you use just the pot and not a double boiler, don’t leave the chocolate while it is melting.  Someone else who tried this put equal amounts of chocolate and organic heavy cream letting the chocolate melt and stirring until the two were well mixed.  That might be an option for you, we have not tried this way of melting and adding chocolate to the popcorn.

Sixth – This is best done with semi-sweet chocolate – we used semi-sweet organic chocolate chips and threw in about 1/3 organic peanut butter chips – just because we were getting carried away with ourselves.

Seventh – Once the chocolate is melted – let it cool a bit and very carefully sprinkle this over your popcorn – which is now covered with the sugar syrup and has cooled to become hardened.  The chocolate is the second layer and once it cools and hardens again your popcorn is ready to eat.

It is best eaten lukewarm.  Don’t expect to have any left.  We demolished  a huge amount in minutes and more had to be made.

Eighth – this is good with or without the organic peanut butter chips.  The piece of ginger root which you put into the pot with the sugar and water gives a wonderful under taste, which many people will not be able to identify because we are not accustomed to the taste of real, organic ginger root.  It is a powerfully hot ingredient.  Not temperature hot, but spicy hot.  Using just a small piece will not bring up the spicy heat, but will give a nice taste to the popcorn.

Let us know how you liked this dish.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Gluten Problems??????????

Thursday, March 7th, 2013

copyright 2013 Bettina Network, inc. for Marceline Donaldson

Many years ago I worked for The Pillsbury Company – for a brief time – with a long following law suit – which is the stuff of legend around my neighborhood. I offer that fact to you in the interest of full disclosure.

One, of the many things that upset me, happened when I was moved to International Marketing with one of my responsibilities being over the Silos.  It wasn’t something I actually did, it was an old hangover from another time, but the job description was never amended.

In the process of this tenure, I received a telephone call from the real manager of the Silos, the one who had been at Pillsbury for many years and who did the day to day managing of the Silos.  He informed me there was an infestation of bugs in the Silos and asked what he should do about it.

My immediate response was – throw out the flour in the Silos – you can’t sell flour to people which is or has been full of bugs.

He thanked me and hung-up.

Shortly thereafter my boss came along and said “Marceline, we can’t throw out the flour.  He wasn’t calling to actually get input from you on what to do, he has been doing this job for many years and knew what to do.  With your new job description he needs your signature and go ahead to proceed.”

Well, what did that mean!

It means his procedure, set up by who knows, was to spray the flour in the Silos with pesticides to kill the bugs.

Being confused, I asked my boss how did they get the pesticides out of the flour and how did they make the flour clean again from bug feces, etc.

He told me they didn’t.   The FDA said the pesticides were not enough to negatively affect human health and by the time the flour was packaged and reached the grocery store shelves no one ever questioned what those little black specs were or where they came from.

Being really mind blown, I checked around the industry and discovered that was common practice and why did I have a problem with it?  It was normal – everybody did it – and given that fact, they wouldn’t do such if it was problematical or would cause the public health problems.

Well, I didn’t sign off on it – the job description was finally adjusted and we all settled down to a very uncomfortable co-existence.

From that time onward, whenever I go to the store for flour I buy organic whole wheat or organic some other kind of flour whichever has minimum processing of the flour.  That has been my practice since that time in early 1970.  And given the fact that I bake quite a bit, it is possible to make extremely delicious breads, cakes, etc. using only organic whole wheat flour.  All those recipes and comments from Chefs which say you have to add White Flour or your baking won’t come out right are a lot of baloney.  Most recipes, which call for White overly processed flour translate on a one to one basis – they were probably translated from the organic whole wheat lightly milled flour to what we have today. – who said “Without a knowledge of history, we are really seriously handicapped in the way we live.”

We have had several people for breakfast lately who’ve said they don’t eat wheat because their doctor said they were ‘sensitive’.  They didn’t have celiac disease – full blown- according to them, but their ‘sensitivity’ to wheat made them – on their doctors’ advice – eliminate wheat from their diet.

It has occurred to me to question if they are ‘sensitive’ to wheat or if they are ‘sensitive’ to and/or ‘allergic’ to the chemicals used to debug the flour.

I’ve raised the issue, but this pesticide treatment of flour has been a closely guarded secret of the flour processing companies for decades.

There was not this ‘sensitivity’ to flour when I was growing up.  Its only recent that we are running into people who refuse to eat wheat because of it.

Since their doctors have no idea what’s in the wheat – they, I am sure, as well as everybody else  have no clue as to this treatment of wheat.  So, why would they test their patients for a sensitivity to the pesticides sprayed on the wheat before it is packed and shipped.  Why would they look at whether their patients are allergic to the bugs and bug droppings in the wheat when they don’t know that such exists.

It really should be investigate to determine its real affect on humans and investigated by scientists other than those related to the flour industry.

This is one of many stories I have about what happens to our flour.  We all need to be vigilant and on our toes about the food we eat, especially the food which has been processed.  The FDA doesn’t seem to have done such a great job.  But then, maybe I am confused as to whose interest they are protecting!

If you’ve stayed in our home you know some of the other stories about the wheat and the FDA – especially the strawberry story.  I won’t bore you with repeating them.

Good eating!!!  And stay responsible for your health and therefore your diet.  What you eat determines who you are and your present and future health.  Exercise is fine, but it is only about 10 percent of the equation – and – is it so highly touted to be the red herring to throw you off looking at the real problems.

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

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

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

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Health and Beauty Tips – Who Holds Truth?

Thursday, February 28th, 2013

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2013

We had a wonderful breakfast with a small group of ladies all over 80 and I am under 35.  It was not what I was used to, but I am going to change my lifestyle.  I learned a lot, laughed harder than I ever have in life, and have some new values to put in place.

I wanted to take notes to write a blog about this breakfast, but didn’t want to offend the ladies or look too commercial or whatever was going on with me.  I am new at this blog business – I can write, but how do you get the information without being obvious?

What I learned is that you can’t.

I kept running back and forth from the kitchen to the dining room and back, trying to make notes.  As really great things came up, I would run into the kitchen to add the discussion to my notebook.  I don’t know how reporters cope.  I wanted to be a part of the conversation, yet I also wanted to document it.

We did talk about everything.  On one of my trips to the kitchen, when I arrived back in the dining room, one of the women presented me with a pencil and paper and suggested I stay at the table and take my notes.  They didn’t mind, but my back and forth was maddening.  They were laughing uncontrollably and had been since I started these back and forths, but I didn’t realize they were laughing at me and my antics.

Relieved – what follows is that breakfast:

I loved the way one of the women – at 83 years old – had almost no wrinkles and more energy then I have ever had.  I sat next to her because I wanted to know her secrets.  She said she didn’t have any.  She just kept the lifestyle she had as a young person and didn’t take part in the food, cosmetic, housing revolution which she witnessed over her lifetime.  She thought it was all quite dangerous to one’s health.

She smelled of roses – and there was her first secret.  She used organic essential oil of roses and no perfume.  The oil was in her rinse water when washing her clothes and not on her skin when she got dressed.  I will probably never be able to pull that off because a quick trip to the internet and Yahoo-ing ‘Essential Oil of Rose” put me into a state of money shock.  Organic Essential Oil of Rose I didn’t even bother Yahoo-ing because I knew that would be even further out of my financial reach.

So what else could I copy?

None of the ladies used commercial cosmetics – no lipstick, no lotions, no makeup – like foundation, etc.  They took care of themselves out of their refrigerators and their cabinets.  I knew that was the coming thing – I didn’t know that was the past thing.  I knew my grandmother used stuff out of her kitchen, but I didn’t pay attention to what she was doing or using.

One lady used beta carotene capsules for lipstick and a little red for her face here and there.  She clipped a capsule of the beta carotene and used it on her finger.  I knew about that from an article on Bettina Network’s Blog about using beta carotene to color your hair, but hadn’t thought about it for lipstick.  She gave me a couple capsules and I tried it.  The color was a bit orange.  It looked great on me so I am a convert.  I don’t know if it would do well on everyone, but it is going to be my choice from now on.  I notice it changed colors as the day progressed and didn’t last all day, but then neither did the lipstick I wore.  I carried the lipstick in my pocket book and reapplied it during the day.  I don’t know how I can do that with beta carotene, but necessity is the mother of invention and this is all new to me so let’s see what happens.  It is worth the effort to get this down to a great new habit.

The comments and sharing I liked best were from the woman with almost no wrinkles and some 83 years old.  She did this “hot and cold” thing.  She splashed water on her face in the mornings when she woke and it was first warm to hot water and then very cold water.  When she took her shower in the morning, it was without soap – in fact, none of the ladies used soap or soap substitutes – water was all they used on their bodies.  She said she showered in the mornings,  first in a warm shower and while standing in the shower she gradually turned the water to cold – showered a few minutes under very cold water and then turned it back to warm again.

Her friend objected because she used this hot and cold water thing, but she got out of the shower after turning the water to cold.

Apparently, this was big when they were my age, which is when they got these beauty tips.  One read – and had her collection of Prevention Magazines  in her basement.  Hers are from the time before Prevention Magazine was sued and taken over by the Meds (their words, not mine).  They all used to read the magazine religiously, but cancelled their subscriptions after the law suit and it became, according to them –  “an arm of the AMA.”  The hot and cold business was something either someone wrote in about or the magazine wrote an article on and it became big in their circle at the time.  Not many people they know today still adheres to the regime, but they do and they look fantastic.

My great-great grandmother used to do this – but that was because she didn’t have hot and cold water in her bathroom.  She lived well into her 90’s and looked great.  I don’t know why I didn’t follow her example – probably because I was quite young and not worried about health or beauty.  My mother clearly did not follow the family example and today one hears all kind of ugly comments made during many commercials about looking like, acting like, wearing clothes like your grandmother.  The one that comes to mind is “your grandmother’s jeans”.  I guess I was made for this breakfast conversation because I like Jeans that fit and don’t hang around my hips on their way to below my butt.  Isn’t there somewhere a history which says the Jeans being foisted on young people today are clothes that were worn in jail to let your fellow inmates know you were up for prostitution?  When we lose our history, we lose ourselves.

We acknowledge that it looks obscene when we see young men in the “ghetto” wearing pants which show the crack in their butts, but nothing is said when young white women wear the same jeans which show the crack in their butts.  That is considered high fashion.  As a young white woman, keep those butt-crack showing jeans and all those marketing promotions away from me.  I will look to my grandmother for advice, hints and more.

All of that – plus more – which would take me a book to write about – made me think about all the marketing that goes on around products that cost a fortune and deliver next to nothing.  I have been going along with their story and buying some of their products because the ads attracted me.  After using ”stuff”  for a few months and having nothing except buyers remorse.  I think before I do anything else I am going to look at the person recommending some kind of cosmetic to me to see if they use it and how they look as a result.  The people I look to will not be the 13 year olds who model these products –  I want to know what the 80 year olds are doing when they look fantastic, healthy and full of energy with few wrinkles. There is nothing holding truth like seeing results and I have not been getting any from the $300-$400/month I have been spending on cosmetics because I saw an add which made me think it was truth – and finding out it was clearly hype.

This was my first morning on my new regime.  I splashed my face with warm to hot water and then a lot of cold water before I had coffee.  A nice feeling – and I looked better than the person who usually straggles down for coffee early in the morning.

I also took my first hot/cold shower this morning.  After I finished my coffee I tried standing in the shower under warm water, gradually turning the temperature up to hot (but not too hot, I am no martyr for beauty) and then turning it all the way to cold.  It was an unusual experience.  It takes a little getting used to, but I thought of those women and how great they look.  I am going to slug it out until this is as normal to me as it is to them.  They are going to be my inspiration. And – the biggy – the cost is only of the water, which I would have to pay for anyway.

My first Bettina Network Blog!  Hey editors – you don’t have to copyright this under my name, its a gift.  My next blog, however, will be a different story.  Although, maybe I would like the term I just coined under copyright or whatever I need to do to claim it!!!!  I think Yahoo-ing will give Google a run for its money in the search world.  I love Marisa Meyer.

Ed Note:  The highlighting of “Yahoo-ing” was done by the editor. It was an interesting word and since our author saw it as her creation we thought we should give it a boost.

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

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

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

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

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A Tribute to The Rev. Patricia Riley Colenback (1931-2013)

Sunday, February 24th, 2013

taken from “Alla Bozarth-Campbell’s – From Womanpriest: A Personal Odyssey, Paulist Press 1978

Bakerwoman God

 
Bakerwoman God,
I am your living Bread.
Strong, brown, Bakerwoman God.
I am your low, soft, and being-shaped loaf.
 
I am your rising bread,
well-kneaded by some divine
and knotty pair of knuckles,
by your warm earth-hands.
I am bread well-kneaded.
 
Put me in fire, Bakerwoman God,
put me in your own bright fire.
I am warm, warm as you from fire.
I am white and gold, soft and hard,
brown and round.
I am so warm from fire.
 
Break me, Bakerwoman God!
I am broken under your caring Word.
Drop me in your special juice in pieces.
Drop me in your blood.
Drunken me in the great red flood.
Self-giving chalice swallow me.
My skin shines in the divine wine.
My face is cup-covered and I drown.
 
I fall up
in a red pool
in a gold world
where your warm
sunskin hand
is there to catch and hold me.
Bakerwoman God,
remake me.
 

And how many times, Pat,  did you say these words over others…………………..

                              “Give rest, O Christ, to your servant Pat with your saints, where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing, but life everlasting.”

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

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

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

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

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2013 The Jubilee Year

Friday, February 8th, 2013

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2013 for Marceline Donaldson

We declare the year 2013 to be the Year of the Jubilee and a holy, joyous, history making, sin forgiving year!

By whose authority? – by our own.  Isn’t that how such things happen!!!!

Generations from now, the historical cry will be reported and everyone will forget it was declared by one little person in a tiny corner of Massachusetts in danger of being crushed by Harvard University.

Why 2013? —————– Why not 2013!

The year Barack Hussein Obama was re-elected president of these United States. A man of African and Colonial American origins.  He not only models what African Americans can accomplish, he also models that ‘half-breeds’ can be brilliant, successful, achieve beyond everyone’s expectations and really – how can you tell his racial background from just meeting him?  Doesn’t his smile wipe all of your doubts away?

His election – his person – does not go through years of ancestors stolen from Africa and forcibly put into slavery.   He comes from the combination of the Africans who escaped being brought over as slaves and the very middle-class White Americans who brought some of his family/tribe/countrymen over to do their work for them – for free.  And, in spite of that ancestry he is just as nice and kind and smart and thoughtful and….as he can be.  The progeny of the original enemies in these United States – the original American oppressed and oppressors – those who stole the freedom of generations of human beings so they wouldn’t have to do their own menial work and those who were stolen and lived for generations outside their own country, culture, language, until they no longer could recognize from whence they had come.

This Jubilee Year, which we are declaring, also comes 50 year after Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement which broke out in this country and partially freed some of us from sitting behind signs on buses; drinking from water fountains which were never clean; going to the back door of restaurants and paying the same price for contaminated food handed to us out the back door which we then had to find a place to eat;  travelling and wondering just where we were going to sleep the night because hotels, motels, inns, were not welcoming and did not allow Blacks to register; going to inferior segregated schools; not being allowed into institutions of higher learning except for those established ‘for colored patrons only’ and on and on and on.

We are a step beyond slavery, but still not free!  A more qualified African American woman was passed over for Secretary of State in favor of a qualified, but less qualified White Male from a very Patrician American family – complete with trust fund, hundreds of millions of dollars and a phalanx of supporters in his chosen profession protecting him and making sure anyone threatening his path to his chosen goal was dutifully destroyed – or at the least – with reputation mangled.

With BHO’s election to the presidency we should proclaim this a great year of celebration. No, he is not perfect.  No, I don’t agree with all of his stands on things.  No, I suspect he has more than a little bit of sexism in his soul and it has popped out and will probably continue to do so.  No to a lot about BHO, but YES, I will shout and loudly proclaim this celebration and the debt we owe him for stepping out and moving all of us out of a less equal time.  If I knew about ram’s horns I would probably continuously bother all of my neighbors by playing several, all year.

This Jubilee Year, which we are proclaiming, is a year of unmitigated joy, but also a year of universal pardon for all of the sins of the past.  It is time to put slavery, its manifestations in today’s society, its ruination of the lives of some of my and your ancestors (be they White, Black, Green, Pink, Brown or Purple) in the past and look to the future which this year proclaims possible.  A future that is about all of us – that sees us working together to bring about a world free of the horribleness of the past.

In this Jubilee Year:

We need to call on our brothers and sisters to stop manufacturing foods and other processed goods which are harmful to us!

We need to call on our brothers and sisters to take global warming seriously and stop polluting the planet and to stop doing all the other things which are turning our living rooms into our toilets and our bodies into garbage disposals and composters at the expense of our health!

We need to call on our brothers and sisters to learn to settle their grievances without resorting to killing another human being – raping women and children – blowing up buildings out of their self-righteous hatred – playing games which hurt others, but relieves their own anxieties and covers from them the fact that they are mortal and one day will die.

We need to call on our brothers and sisters to take responsibility for each other.  No one should sleep on the street or in other than a bed, have warm clothing, enough food to eat and be able to live without the fear of another human being.  We are, afterall, more alike than different.  We are our brothers and sisters keepers.  We have heard those messages from childhood as have our parents, grandparents, great grandparents and much further back into history, heard them also, but we still have not put them into practice in our lives.

We need to call on our brothers and sisters to do at least one good deed each day for someone in need.

We need to dismantle our class structure which raises us up to believe some of us are better – as a part of a group – than others of us.

We need to dismantle what is left of racism.

We need to dismantle what is left of sexism.

We need to totally dismantle ageism.

And we need to do all of that and more before December 2013 so we can all end the year feeling great about ourselves and each other.  So that no matter where we are in the world it is a safe place and if we need anything the people in that place will move to supply whatever ‘it’ is.

According to Leviticus 25:10 “Thou shalt sanctify the fiftieth year and shalt proclaim remission to all the inhabitants of thy land; for it is the year of the Jubilee.”

This needs to be a year of great goodness – great deeds – great acknowledgement of our common and shared humanity each one equal to the next, no one greater than another.  We should work hard to keep this Jubilee Year and at the end, maybe we will have created habits which carry over into 2014.

50 years ago – at the beginning of this cycle of this Jubilee year –

  • John F. Kennedy and Medgar Evers were assassinated and W. E. B. DuBois dies!
  • Martin Luther King, Jr. writes his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail’ and later in the year gives his famous “I have a Dream Speech”, during the March on Washington.
  • Hoses and Police dogs turned on protestors and are nationally televised for the first time
  • Children’s crusade brings about a form of settlement – Birmingham juvenile court inundated with African-American children and teenagers arrested while protesting
  • 16th Street Baptist Church bombed killing four young girls – out of which came Condoleeza Rice
and out of all of this and much more in the celebration year, the sabbatical year, has come Barack Husein Obama.
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Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

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

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

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

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Conversations about “The Flu”

Monday, January 21st, 2013

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2013

It is amazing how we could be taken over by serious and urgent conversation about something that used to be so common and harmless.  A little worse than a cold, but tolerable and aren’t you glad its over.  A couple days off from work;  lying in bed – reading, eating, sleeping and then all is well.

Today, it is a major catastrophe.  An epidemic of gargantuan size.  A threat to civilizaiton.  The end to life as we know it.

Most of the conversations over breakfast lately have always included something about the flu.  In fact, we have had a couple guests who arrived with the flu who we had to offer to serve them breakfast in bed so the other guests would not revolt and run screaming out of our houses:)

In spite of all the talk, we have not had the flu – or a cold – in three or four years.  Can’t brag about it because that’s when it happens.  However, reflecting on the conversations and seeing how most of it was people who wanted to know how to strengthen their immune systems rather than whether or not they should get a flu shot, we are convinced society will survive this threat.

One thing we have changed in our lifestyle and recommended it several blogs ago – was to give up anti-perspirants and deodorants because we believe they are wicked bad.  Trying to do just that we had about a one month time of being very careful when around other people – not because of the flu, but because we didn’t want to share any obnoxious odors we might generate from having given up antiperspirants and deodorants. We went around smelling under our arms constantly when out and about; getting a bit perplexed when the organic apple cider vinegar we talked about using instead of the anti-perspirants, etc. gave us a hard time because it didn’t hold.

Well, that all worked itself out.  We now don’t even have to think about it.  Taking a shower in the morning – without soap, just plain warm water over the body to get rid of the overnight smells and then splash a little Bragg’s Organic Apple Cider Vinegar with the Mother under our arms we are good to go for the day.

Something must happen – the body must adjust and need a couple weeks to get over its dependency on having its under-arm pores plugged with aluminum to keep from smelling,  because after a couple weeks I can go two days without showering and without additional apple cider vinegar and smell just as nice and fresh.

I remember a time in the United States, when I was little, that people went a week without bathing.  Saturday night was the big ‘clean-up’ night.  You bathed – you soaked – you washed your hair – you defoliated and anti-perspirants were not around.  You just didn’t smell bad all week.  Today, with the diet changes, the heavy processed foods we eat, the change from having heavy proteins as another spice in the food to having it as large hunks of meat and all the rest of our new lifestyle, you can’t go a day without a shower – and bathing seems to have gone completely out of style.

There was much talk around the breakfast table about how apple cider vinegar works to quell your underarm odors.  To smell – you perspire and you have all those bacteria on your skin under your arms.  They drink up the sweat and then have to go to the bathroom.  They don’t have constructed houses under your arms with toilets which flush to send their excretions someplace else so you smell the result of their having gone to the bathroom under your arms.  Antiperspirants eliminate that because they plug your pores with aluminum.  Isn’t that supposed to be one of the causes for Alzheimer’s?  Don’t know if that is true, but it was certainly discussed as a causative factor.  Apple cider vinegar works because it is anti-bacterial and probably kills the bacteria so they have no need to go to the bathroom under your arm pits.

The most common vinegar talked about was Bragg’s Organic Apple Cider Vinegar.  They have a health program and someone from the company who goes around and gives talks about staying healthy the “Bragg” way.

The television commercials are all cautioning you to wash your hands and showing people with piles of soap suds on their hands over a sink.  We don’t wash our hands with soap and water.  That makes things worse.  All of your protective oils are washed away and for minutes after your fervent washing of hands all the germs in the world can come and find a home on your unprotected skin.  We ‘wash’ our hands with Organic Apple Cider Vinegar and it works wonders for the skin.  Sometimes, we even splash a little on our face taking care not to get it in the eyes because the burning will be fierce – we know because we’ve been there – done that.

Other than the vinegar as deodorant – the rest of the conversation was about the changes in our lifestyles and our environment, which seem to be breaking down our bodies at a very rapid pace, while we engage in denial.  Others are worried about global warming – we are worried about poor health becoming a way of life in these United States and then around the globe since we seem to export our lifestyle universally.

We wish you good health and hope you avoid this ‘epidemic’.  We also hope you will continue to read Bettina Network’s Blog and pass it around to all of your friends, colleagues, family and those you wish well.

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

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

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

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Benghazi Tells the Future?

Thursday, December 20th, 2012

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2012

Ed Note:  Yes, we had a breakfast conversation – several, in fact, – about the Sandy Hook massacre.  It is too early and people are too tender to join the media massacre of our collective psyche as they posture and jump on this with both feet for days and days and days.  So we will keep the notes we were sent and write about Sandy Hook after a few weeks.

Benghazi, however, is a different story.  There was conversation about John Kerry and Hillary Clinton and none positive nor complimentary.

I am still smarting at the way Susan Rice was treated so to hear others talk about John Kerry’s lack of ethics in chairing this committee hearing on Benghazi while he is looking to be the next Secretary of State warmed my heart.  I had always liked and respected John Kerry – always voted and campaigned  for him, in fact.  I don’t think I would again.

After watching and listening to his Republican friends diss Susan Rice so the path would be clearer for their long-time friend and colleague John Kerry made me more than a little sick to my stomach.

Given my horror at what happened with Kerry/Rice I thought my horror at John Kerry chairing the committee on Benghazi may have reflected my left over feelings about that conflict, however, the breakfast conversations about Benghzi and Kerry backed up my feelings.  How can the truth come out when the chair of the hearing is trying to be nice to the State Department employees and others on that side of the fence because he doesn’t want to go into the State Department as Secretary of State with anyone miffed at him about how they were treated, questioned, etc. at the hearing.

Whether those were his feelings or not, the ethics are clear and are like the elephant in the room.  I was amazed at the intensity of the feelings around this.  Americans are really angry about the quality and lack of ethics among its politicians.  One hears such comments in passing, but to see and hear  the feelings that this Benghazi hearing can engender confirms that we want something different from what has happened in the past.  At one time, such a breach of ethics would go unnoticed.  Today, the media will probably ignore the ethical implications and push John Kerry for Secretary of State, but the rumblings in the general public will not.  They will go along with the program, but its going to cost and surprise someone down the road when those resentments pop out.

The funniest comment was the one about Hillary’s ‘Benghazi flu and subsequent concussion’, which no doctor can cure.  These were not Republicans these were Democrats who were looking at Hillary as a possible candidate for President in 2016.  This, however, had them angry moving away from Hillary.  If this keeps up and spreads, her top numbers today are going to slowly slide as more surfaces about Benghazi and people start to wonder out loud what is she afraid of or hiding.  If these breakfast were any indication,  it looks as though she may be headed into a small storm of having her management abilities questioned – at the very least.

John Kerry should have either renounced any interest in being Secretary of State if he was going to chair this hearing or declined to chair the hearing in favor of someone who could be impartial in trying to get out what actually happened and if there was blame where did it lie.  None of that will surface during this hearing with its obvious political interferences which question the objectivity and impartiality of the chair and/or the committee’s ablility to do its job because of its chair waiting to be nominated Secretary of State.  John Kerry should be sitting where?  – with the questioners or with those being questioned?

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Walnut Oil on Furniture?

Sunday, December 16th, 2012

copyright 2012 Bettina Network, inc.

From a guest and blog reader:

Thanks for your blog on using Walnut Oil on wood furniture.  I tried it and it works phenomenally!  I used the Olive Oil and Walnut Oil – half and half.  A friend of mine used Walnut Oil straight from the Spectrum bottle.  She loves her way, I love mine.

She uses hers on her wood chopping block and wood bowls she uses for mixing salads.  The Walnut oil dries hard – but you have to let it sit a couple days – and it lasts awhile.  She used to use Mineral Oil and I gave her a hard time about that because Mineral Oil is a petroleum derivative (ed note: from Wikipedia “mineral oil is a liquid by-product of the distillation of petroleum to produce gasoline and other petroleum-based products from crude oil.”)and I don’t think it should come in contact with food.  Although with all the medicines made from petroleum derivatives and other things we use coming from distillates of petroleum we should be immune – still, I tried her straight Walnut Oil on my chopping block and it was great.

I used the mixture of Olive and Walnut Oils on my antique wood furniture and the shine is unbelievable.  It also looks as though nothing will penetrate or cause the furniture harm.  I even used it on my grand piano.  I did take an additional step.  After I oiled the furniture – which was rubbing in a half and half mixture with a few drops of an essential oil – I let it sit for a couple  days and then rubbed it again with just Olive Oil.

I did this by accident trying to undo what I thought was a great mistake.  The furniture was very sticky and yukky after oiling it and days later it was still sticky and yukky.  I didn’t know what to do and thought I had ruined my furniture.  I went back to the Olive Oil, rubbed the furniture with Olive Oil on a soft rag and couldn’t believe the results.  The furniture is beautiful.  The shine is incredible and old looking furniture now looks soft and with a beautiful sheen.

I put essential oil in the mixture because I would like my house to have a faint smell of lemon oil and essential oil of lemon does the trick.  I might try organic rose oil next time – even though it is wickedly expensive.  The smell of roses through the house should be great.

What fun to experiment like this.  I lost interest in cleaning and caring for my house.  I have now regained that because it has become a creative endeavor and with the products you are talking about I am not worried about giving myself a serious disease from my cleaning products.  I wouldn’t even let the woman who helps me clean use products she has been using for years.  She thought I was being silly, but has since changed her mind and won’t use anything else.  I am sure the other people she works for are happy with the change.

I don’t know where you get his stuff from but wherever, keep those great tips coming.  I am guessing, from breakfast conversations.

When I stayed at XXXXXXXXXXXX in the Bettina Network we talked about recipes for making banana bread.  I expected to talk about solving the huge problems in the world.  Maybe next time.  My banana bread, however, is great!  Your guests were right about the ingredients making the difference.  I used the same ingredients that I used before that conversation, in the same amounts, but they are now organic and the best I can find and the difference is astounding.  Worth the few extra quarters.  I eat less of it because the taste satisfies and doesn’t leave me craving white sugar, lard and flour.  We didn’t solve the worlds’ problems at the breakfasts I had in the Bettina Network, but the new discoveries around banana bread is a start.  And – my now using Walnut Oil instead of XXXXXXXXXXXXX means a minute amount of petroleum is no longer being used and maybe that is also a different kind of start to solving some of the world’s problem.  Who said to the flower “bloom where you are planted.”

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Was Susan Rice Used?

Friday, December 14th, 2012

copyright Bettina Network, inc. – 2012

RICE = ROGERS = GUINIER.  What do they have in common besides all being African Americans!

Was yet another woman used? – misused? – abused?  in this political process?

Looks to us as though Ms. Rice’s name was thrown out and then reeled in to get the deal President Obama wanted from Congress – and it looks as though not only was it a successful ploy, but he knows the political process very well and is not above playing the game.  After all, he is now one of the big boys.  I just hope he has not become one of the ‘good ole boys.’

Looks like something Bill Clinton did years ago when he was president and the woman used – abused – misused – was Lani Guinier .  Harvard Law School ProfessorIn 1993 Ms. Guinier was nominated by President Bill Clinton to be Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights.  Just like Ms. Rice, Ms. Guinier was eminently qualified – Radcliffe College, Yale Law School, Assistant to the then Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights – a really brilliant and accomplished Black Woman.  One of the Clintons’ Yale Law School classmates.

Congress jumped all over Bill Clinton demanding her nomination be withdrawn and who was one of those who counseled him to withdraw the nomination? – none other than Ted Kennedy (genuflecting – of sainted memory), among others, including the Black Female who we will only identify with the nom de plume “turn coat” – “sell out without knowing how much you were selling out for”.  So, of course, Ms. Guinier’s nomination was withdrawn.  The Wall Street Journal called her one of “Clinton’s Quota Queens” (remember the title of  Welfare Queen)?.  The racism and sexism of that was overlooked and instead of articulating what this was about and going ahead to back-up and support his nominee, Clinton succumbed to the pressure, even though it looked as though Ms. Guinier would be confirmed.  The loud, racist and sexist voices won the day.

The claim made to derail Ms. Guinier’s nomination – at the end of the day – turned out to be false, but the media proclaimed it loudly and kept the drum beat going so Ms. Guinier would be taken down – doesn’t that sound familiar?  In small print after the fact, it was acknowledged that the loud drums beat out the wrong message.  Now, isn’t that what they are doing to Ms. Rice?  Even louder, because they have had more experience  beating drums to drum out Black women!

And then there was Desiré Rogers.  Another tremendous African American woman from New Orleans.  I knew her parents and her grandparents.  They were very substantial people and Ms. Rogers had a very solid and ethical upbringing.

Partially because of that New Orleans upbringing, -after what she went through in Washington, D. C. – Ms. Rogers was able to continue her life almost without missing a beat and moved right on up!  And Condoleeza Rice – the horrible Republican who many can’t stand to even see or speak about – gets a standing ovation from any Republican group she appears in front of.  Is that some kind of contrast?  Takes me back to the days of Walter L. Cohen, African American who was head of the Louisiana Republican Party!

All three Black women were charged with things which were blown out of all proportion and all those charges and innuendos were kept going by the media who turned crap, half-truths and more into something which sounded real, substantial and reason for them to be not considered, re-considered, removed. Two were exonerated in the end when things quieted down and the racist sexist goals had been achieved.  Ms. Rice will also be so exonerated.  That will take awhile since we saw the news people this morning showing signs of relief that Ms. Rice would not be considered for Secretary of State.  One news reporter woman let out an audible sound of relief.  Although in Ms. Rice’s case it looks more like racism and sexism were used to reach a political goal and not a very big one, considering the price being paid by Susan Rice.

With Susan Rice,

U. N. Ambassador

Should be next Secretary of State

the forces of Congress came out once again to attempt to destroy an African American woman.- the Republican forces came out against her because the Democratic forces could not.  They would have been accused of pushing for the appointment of a friend – which was, in fact what the Republicans were doing.  What we have just witnessed on the political stage could be called “A Time of Surrogacy” with John McCain being the star of the play.

The good ole boys coming out to make sure one of their own got what he wanted.  The price someone else paid for that is really irrelevant and not to be considered.  That will just go down in the books as a debt to be repaid and they will look to John Kerry, at some point down the road, to repay the debt – and he will.

This time, it looks as though President Obama threw Ms. Rice to the Congressional Wolves so he could negotiate and get what he wanted from them if he withdrew her name from the short list and went back to John Kerry instead.  The games boys will play.

Don’t you think it is time we elect men – or – a woman?

Was this the same John Kerry who was President Obama’s coach for that first memorable debate – which came close to blowing Obama’s chances for re-election and at the very least promoted Mitt Romney’s campaign to a higher level?

It seems to me Mitt Romney should be the one promoting John Kerry to higher responsibilities not President Obama – but then, we don’t know what goes on behind those closed political doors.  And then I could be wrong – but have you read the Bettina Network’s Blog on “Rice and Kerry”?

And – in an aside, which probably had nothing to do with deals being made – Scot Brown, solely because of his ESP – and having nothing to do with games being played,  started his campaign as early as December 4th.  What did he know that the rest of us didn’t?  He is getting ready to run for John Kerry’s seat.  We think that seat should go to Martha Coakley – or – preferably to an African American woman as an appointment.  If games are going to be played – set better ground rules fellows, this is a society full of diversity with a diversity mind set.  To replace a White Man whose hands are unclean with another White Male whose … tsk tsk tsk!

Our breakfast table guests are seldom wrong.  They seem to have that inside track which comes out over those really scrumptious breakfasts served in the bed & breakfast homes in the Bettina Network.  Maybe its the coffee which brings out such great conversations.  Check them out, especially if you have conversation to share!

If John Kerry has any sense of decency he will withdraw his name from consideration.  It is the only decent and ethical thing he can do and it is the only way such games will begin to cease.  But then, he has moved far away from the days in which his actions and youthful ideology first got him elected to Congress.  How the mighty have fallen!  Or – is it that power corrupts?

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

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A Guest Responds to Rice and Kerry

Thursday, November 29th, 2012

I read your blog on the Secretary of State fiasco and I am so glad someone has put out there what is actually happening.   I am especially distressed about what I am seeing in the media and hearing about this Susan Rice thing.  Imagine putting such a lovely young woman through such trials because they need to clear a path for a WUCM member to become Secretary of State.  It is criminal!  Almost reaches the level of Depraved Indifference to who she is – how hard she worked to gain her credentials – how even harder she worked to serve the United States for a lot of years – to serve all of us – and now the reward for her hard work is this treatment which brings to my mind ‘Depraved Indifference. ‘  A legal terms, but fully adequate in this context.  And that legal terms brings Philippa Schuyler – another African American woman – to mind.

If we had a media which published the truth over the decades and generations our ruling White Upper Class Males would not have been able to buy the election for Ronald Reagan – which all of us saw, but none reported.  Now, Republicans are coming to the fore to attempt to insure that their group is not left out of power – not their Republican group, but their WUCM group.  Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Tea Party etc. all belong to this group.

The media in Massachusetts is becoming confident and putting its toe in the water and beginning to talk (3:45am Channel 6) about how to persuade Governor Patrick to appoint Scot Brown to the seat that will be vacated by John Kerry when he is appointed Secretary of State.  If that doesn’t confirm your breakfast blog, nothing will.

The media is clearly complicit in all of this and their tom-toms ring out around the world heralding what they are all in agreement with and see as their vested interest to the continued sharing of power.

There was or is a group researching Philippa Schuyler, to keep her memory alive and her accomplishments in front of the public.  I think that is a laudable effort, especially at times like this when one can see similarities.  To put what is happening to Susan Rice in a historical context brings a total different picture to the forefront.

Philippa Schuyler was a young African American woman, killed by what some of us believe was first degree murder i.e. Depraved Indifference.  I’ve heard more than one person lately agreeing with me and I believe some information from the Philippa Schuyler committee also said the same thing.

The parallel to the way Susan Rice’s reputation is being ‘killed’ by a group trying to maintain the WUCM’s control is startling.

With Philippa Schuyler, there was a total ignoring of what happened to her by some and an attempt at public justification by the WUCM.  There was a Congressional Hearing.  No charges were brought even though clearly there should have been charges of Depraved Indifference and the culprits should have been brought to trial, but Congress held a hearing which they thought and apparently accurately so, would defuse any problems from the African American community following her death.  Not a peep since.  Not a peep from the minority and women groups about what is happening to Susan Rice, either.  Does that show how far outside African American women are?  Who are your defenders?

Ms. Rice, apparently,  must be sacrificed so John Kerry can have his day in the sun as Secretary of State?  Where is the African American, Latino American, Women’s groups on what is happening in front of your faces.  The quiet from you is deafening.  Have you not heard – ‘if they come for me in the morning, they will return for you in the afternoon?”  Certainly, an outcry behind what happened to Philippa Schuyler might have changed the world for minorities and especially women – but there was none.

What is interesting about the Philippa Schuyler parallel – Philippa and her father were very conservative in their thinking and writing, except where it came to reporting on events and issues where their main criteria was the truth.  They were conservative to the point of being involved with the then John Birch Society.  That didn’t, however, save Philippa’s life.  Liberal or Conservative doesn’t really matter does it!  Isn’t that what this bit of theatre is saying?  The WUCM Republicans ignore party lines when it comes to some things – and maintaining and increasing the power of two of their own is paramount.  The WUCM Democrats have and will in the future, return the favor.

Philippa drowned and her parents suffered the extreme loss and grief that happens under those circumstances.

Philippa was a great child prodigy and pianist who was outstanding and traveled the world playing concerts on many world stages.  She composed symphonies by the age of six.  If she had lived, I think her journalistic talent would have dwarfed her music.  Some of us believe it was her journalism which caused her death.  But she was both and it took both sides of her to produce the articles she wrote.

She was the only one to stand tall and write the real story of what happened in Africa decades ago in the death of – oh my, was it Lumumba!  Every other journalist got the story wrong, but they were consistent in what they reported.  So their story came from where? to be so consistently wrong?  “Intel?”  Did all of the journalists who engaged in that bit of conspiracy lose their jobs?  Miss promotions? etc. etc.  Maybe they need to step back and take another look at this Susan Rice scenario.

Philippa, who kept her contacts with those low on the economic totem pole, had ways to find the truth and she wrote about what she found and  it was accurate and truth and her parents then had to deal with her death from, what some of us believe was purposefully negligent, – depraved indifference.

How does that relate to Susan Rice?  Yet another African American woman is being slaughtered for things which are minor especially when compared to things the WUCM group has done and suffered no career set-back from.  Yet Ms. Rice is being set-up to lose a possible appointment as Secretary of State because the WUCM group has a member – John Kerry – who wants to be Secretary of State.  And here we also have some Congressional involvement.  Not the Democrats, that would be too clear, but we don’t need to be led to see through a mirror darkly,  we need to see face to face.

Through the mirror darkly we see the Republicans fighting Ms. Rice – White Males all, except for the involvement of the White Woman who looks like a parallel to the African Americans who worked with the KKK.  All helping their brother WUCM members by attempting to take care of two of them – Scot Brown and John Kerry.  I can’t believe how this stuff happens over and over and over again and a story is spun by the media which has nothing to do with reality, but is throwing smoke in your face so your eyes sting and you can’t see what is in front of you – and throwing the work over to the other side so the WUCM can say – see, its not us – bring us that bowl of water so we can wash our hands clean and prove to you we were not involved!  Whose hands are being washed here?  The Republicans?  No – its the good ole Democrat boys looking out for their own.

Thanks again for the breakfast article.  I wish others had the guts to write the truth.  Sitting around Bettina Network breakfast tables I have heard some incredible talk and hope to continue.  It certainly cleared my head and got my thinking straightened out.

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Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Guest comments, Historical Support, Making Connections, Reader Feedback | Comments Off on A Guest Responds to Rice and Kerry

A Larry Hagman breakfast!

Sunday, November 25th, 2012

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2012

Such a discussion.  We need to express sympathy to Larry Hagman’s family on his death.  By all accounts he was a fun, lovely person who has done much good for those around him.  We hope his soul rests in peace.

However, a breakfast conversation about Hagman was kind of different.  Everyone was, at first, expressing what they had read in the media, heard from the media or saw on the internet.  Somehow, the conversation turned to what Hagman was really about – looking at him from the perspective of the body of work he left behind.

The general expressions were about how skillfully and completely he had taken in an entire society and projected onto all of us a lethal kind of sexism, which influenced a generation of impressionable young people.  How many are watching re-runs of “I Dream of Jeannie” and “Dallas?”

“I Dream of Jeannie” was a sitcom which I thought was cute, although I didn’t really watch more than one episode.  It wasn’t described as “cute” around the table.  Jeannie was described as a blond, Middle-Eastern belly dancer who was so into her inferiority and her role as fulfiller of this man’s needs, wishes and dreams that she even called Hagman ‘master’.  It was a complete rolling out of a sit-com which fulfilled most mens’ dreams and which negatively paralleled the women’s movement – re-enforcing and making even worse, stereotypes which the women’s movement was trying to counter with an image of woman as equal.  Was it coincidence that such a show was rolled out when the Women’s Movement was becoming an important force in American Society, Business and Culture?

“Jeannie”  also parallels the stereotype of the Middle-Eastern male warrior dreaming about dying to reach his virgins.  Jeannie herself, could very well be almost number one in that dream sequence – yet this was an American not a Middle-Eastern show. Hmmmmmmm!!

And then there was “Dallas”.  Wow! This was the sit-com which made Hagman into a multi-millionaire on the backs of women – helping to make their lives difficult by depriving them of any vestige of equality, dignity, responsibility, etc., having to fight off other women falling all over themselves to hook up with the most machismo of men – looking to cash in on the power of the men in the show!  It didn’t come in for any good comments.  Nor did Hagman at this point.  He lived well at a woman’s expense.  May he rest in peace and the body of work he helped produce be buried with him.

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Posted in Bettina's Hall of Fame, Breakfast Table Talk, Making Connections | Comments Off on A Larry Hagman breakfast!

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