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Secretary of State???

Sunday, November 18th, 2012

Lordy – what did that guy say? ‘Much ado about nothing’? Well, this is NOT much ado about nothing. This is as much ado as possible to drown Susan Rice and make sure John Kerry is the next Secretary of State.

Nothing personal Susan. And it has nothing to do with what you said or didn’t say, your qualifications, your color, your sex…….It is simply the old boys rushing to protect the next step up of one of their own.

See, we can cross the aisle to attempt to accomplish something. Now if you guys would make this crossing party lines to work for real issues wouldn’t that be nice!

Sorry Susan – if you have to lose your reputation as they all strive to stomp all over you. It isn’t personal – just politics as usual.

What a hilarious route mimicing the ‘good old boys’ as they try to hide their real agenda! We should have many more such breakfasts.

And who said one should never talk about politics or religion. What else creates such a fun and interesting time. I won’t go into detail – you wouldn’t believe it anyway.

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Tags: bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, John Kerry, Making Connections, politics, Racism, Secretary of State, Sexism, Susan Rice
Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Making Connections | Comments Off on Secretary of State???

Petraeus over Breakfast

Tuesday, November 13th, 2012

Just when you think things are calmer, up comes a topic of conversation over breakfast which could have fried the organic, free of the cage eggs.

The conversation was basically – don’t you think this was a last stand to unseat Obama and turn the election victory over to Romney?

Not having listened to the news, we were floored to learn that the woman who started this Petraeus mess – a Ms. Kelly – has a good friend at the top in the CIA, or was it the FBI, or was it both? We love gossip, but don’t always get it straight, especially when sitting with mouth open listening to the latest. Apparently, that friendship is what started this investigation, not any concern from either the FBI or the CIA about ‘security leaks’ or other possibilities which fit within their commission to do such an investigation, but they carried on anyway and we will now be regaled more with the infractions of those who tried to manipulate than with the core event which started it all. Sound familiar – AGAIN!

Watch closely which Congressional people and other talking heads come forth quickly to turn this into an anti-Obama thing instead of bringing out the truth. When, O Lord, will truth prevail in our society instead of the push for power?

The push for power is an ugly thing and we have experienced it big time throughout this election cycle – and – if we don’t all, as a large United States of America community, push for something better, this is what we will continue to get. Folks are getting rich on these schemes. Don’t we have many ‘nouveau’ multi-millionaires running around stuffing their bank accounts with much dirty money from coming up with such schemes?

Kelly got an FBI investigation into Petraeus and his ‘friend’ Broadwell through her friendship connections with the CIA and FBI and according to our breakfast conversations, this whole thing was to break open just before the election to help end any hopes the Obama Campaign may have had of winning. Amazing! Wish we had such connections – we could put them to much better use. The only FBI connections we have are the spam emails we get supposedly from the FBI and CIA – oh well, such is life.

According to our breakfast conversations, thanks to the bungling and messiness of bureaucracies, that attempted influence into the presidential election didn’t happen, but it came close. Did folks really use the FBI and CIA to attempt to influence a United States Presidential Election? Don’t you think its time for us to demand that our elections be better than what they’ve been? We’ve had Florida, Arizona and now Petraeus?

Now – do we – as a Bettina Network community have such connections? Okay folks, cough them up!!! We can then bring them all together and use them for good! Well, for good maybe after we all become billionaires and are happily roaming the world in our own planes. We can then justify what we did to get there with talk amongst ourselves about our good ‘intentions’ to save the world and make this a better place for ‘our kind.’

But for the Grace of a forgiving God…………

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Tags: Barack Obama, bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Making Connections, Mitt Romney, politics
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Thanks for your Presidential Post!

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2012

I would like to add just a couple things, which I think need to be highlighted:

We read lots about minorities playing the “race card.” No one has said one word about the races taking place today – presidential and otherwise where one person running is blatantly using the ‘race card’ against their opponent. For example, in Massachusetts Scott Brown is heavily using race in all of his campaign ads and rallies. So much so that his staff has taken to making tomaawk chops and the supposed Indian war cry at his rallies. They have picked up what is really being said and they are letting the rest of us know what’s really going on by their actions.

Romney’s campaign is doing the same thing. It was much discussed after Obama won the presidency that racism would intensify in this country because of his win. But, no one said why or how and this election cycle we are seeing why and how. When your opponent is minority or part minority, use the race card to highlight their minority status or do other things to incite the racism which is either active or latent in these United States. It is how many politicians in the deep south in the 1940’s stayed in office and won office. They kept their voting populace stirred up over race.

Your breakfasts sound fantastic. Keep up the good work. When I retire I am going to put my house in the Bettina Network. I have to keep active and ageism has made me much aware of racism and sexism. I must confess I ignored it before I started to realize my age would keep me from credit, jobs and more. Amazing when things come home to where you live how sensitive you become to others suffering that you hadn’t even noticed before. Forgive me my transgressions! I am sure I was one of those letting my racism out against others without realizing it and without taking responsibility for it to make the effort to change. Well, now I get to fight ageism because I didn’t help lessen the ‘isms in this society.

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Tags: ageism, Barack Obama, bed & breakfast, Elizabeth Warren, growing old, Making Connections, Mitt Romney, politics, Racism, Scot Brown, Sexism
Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Growing Old, Guest comments, Making Connections, Reader Feedback | Comments Off on Thanks for your Presidential Post!

Politics at Breakfast? I’m Shocked

Sunday, September 23rd, 2012

You know there would be talk about the coming election over a Bettina Network breakfast table with the media talking Romney and Obama 24/7.

You have something to say? Come to breakfast after a stay in one of the homes in the Bettina Network, inc. We don’t put your name in the blog when we take the ideas you discussed over breakfast so you can feel free to say whatever. Not every conversation winds up in a Bettina Network Blog, only those we feel are ‘hot’ or ‘interesting’ or ‘unusual’ or bring another fact to life which we feel you should know about.

The question asked over this breakfast table was WHY the media is missing the real story in this election and not printing what the public should know! And what did they think the public should know?

In the interest of full disclosure, only one person at the table was a Romney supporter and he came to pick up his friend to show him around the area. He was invited to stay for breakfast and he stayed until almost noon! It was quite a conversation.

First discussed was the major reason for voting for Obama – what was that? RYAN! What happens, if God forbid, something happens to a President Romney. RYAN BECOMES PRESIDENT RYAN! Isn’t that the major role the Vice President plays? – President in waiting? He or she does other things in the process of waiting, — in case, — but that is the Vice President’s major role – and several have played that role over their tenure in the White House!

Second thing discussed was religion! It was not an anti-Mormon discussion, but one the discussers felt was rooted in fact and their considerable concern about electing Romney president. He is, apparently, a high official in the Mormon Church, at least equivalent to the Bishops in the Catholic Church.

No one around the table would have had a problem in the 1960’s voting for John F. Kennedy – a Catholic – for president. They would not have voted for and would have actively worked against the election of Cardinal Cushing for President. Kennedy, according to the person speaking, was an ordinary citizen who happened to be a Catholic and was not beholden to the Pope. His views were his views and he had not taken any kind of oath to defer to the wishes of the Pope on any issue. Before making any decision Kennedy was not beholden nor would anyone expect him to call to consult the Pope, if the issue were one which collided with the beliefs of the Catholic Church. Cardinal Cushing, on the other hand, had taken such an oath and his first fealty was to his Pope because of his position as Cardinal. He would not have been confirmed or ordained a Cardinal if he had refused to take such an oath.

Romney is a Mormon. He is not a Mormon the way John F. Kennedy was a Catholic. He is a Mormon the way Cardinal Cushing was a Catholic – his first fealty is to his Mormon religion, which means the people at the top of the Mormon Church are the ones he listens to and the ones whose decisions and beliefs he could not violate or go against. The United States comes second. He is not free to make decisions contrary to his Church’s religious beliefs and tenets because he is the equivalent to a Bishop or above in the Mormon Church and he has taken such an oath to abide by all the beliefs and issues of faith which his religion dictates.

We have all danced around this issue. We have all been trying to exercise this country’s promise of religious freedom. It is not practicing religious freedom to elect someone as President or to any other office in this country who does not practice the religious freedom this country preaches. He cannot claim religious freedom when he is in a Church which does not carry that belief as one of its tenets, but believes that Mormonism is the true religion and everyone else is going to hell 0r is amongst the damned.

If Romney is in the pew, maybe he believes that and maybe he doesn’t, maybe he follows his church’s teachings and maybe he doesn’t. Romney is not in the pew as an ordinary member of his Church. He is an official of the Church at the level of Bishop – he has pledged an oath to his Church and its leaders that he does indeed believe that Mormonism is the true religion and it is his duty to proselytize and do whatever he can to bring others out of ‘darkness’ into the ‘light’. It is his calling to move to help save John and Jane Q Public from eternal damnation. Who are John and Jane Q. Public? Those who are not current practicing members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints.

Third discussion was about Romney’s claimed business experience and how he will use it to bring all of us into a fantastic, beautifully functioning economy. The discussion was basically along the lines of – if he can’t do that for his own campaign, which is small compared to the United States of America, how can he do that for this country? According to one person around the table, Romney’s campaign was a mess and has been for weeks with Romney not able to pull off or manage a well functioning campaign.

Others commented that his money is not what he is earning through his management skills, but what his money is earning on investments. One person claimed Romney earned the money and that gives him credibility as a manager. Others claimed Romney has not been engaged in management for at least six years – and probably longer. And – to our shock – what came out was that his family money – on which he is now earning money – did not come from Romney’s earnings nor his father’s earnings, but from the Mexican Government. Without that start the Romney’s would not have made it as high as they did financially. Apparently, the Romney family sued the Mexican Government and received a substantial settlement before moving back to the United States with their multiple wives.

What an amazing bit of learning! I would like to know more about that because I thought the Romney fortune came from the Father’s work in Detroit with the automobile industry and I assumed his father had worked hard to pull himself up by his bootstraps, as had most immigrants coming to this country. Apparently, Romney – the father, had a head start, which some claimed was how he rose to the top. – He was not a destitute person coming from Mexico with no money and turning that into another Horatio Alger story. He and his family came well heeled from their encounter with the Mexican Government.

Wow! I must refill my organic coffee cup and ponder these things!

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Tags: 2012 Presidential Election, Barack Obama, bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Mitt Romney, Politics at Breakfast
Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Historical Support, Making Connections | Comments Off on Politics at Breakfast? I’m Shocked

A Fantastic Diet for Good Health!

Friday, September 21st, 2012

We have discovered, through many conversations with guests, an incredible diet to end all diets. We have put this together as we gleaned information a little at a time and experimented to make sure this is workable.

It does work for a couple of us, but we aren’t guaranteeing, advising, or anything else, just reporting on what we’ve observed and experienced.

We started to hear about limes when a guest from India talked about her need to have limes in the afternoon because it was advised by her nutritionist who she absolutely trusted. So we found a source for organic limes for her and every afternoon she would squeeze four limes into a cup and drink the juice.

We knew about having an organic lemon squeezed into a cup of warm water and drinking that first thing in the morning to get your day started on the right foot and your body regulated – through a regular morning trip to the bathroom. We didn’t know anything about limes except for the jokes about the English ‘Limeys’.

Later came others who looked for lemons and limes – never organic – but we added that to what they were doing and suggested that might be a better way than just ordinary limes and lemons that you didn’t know what was sprayed, dug into the dirt, washed into the fruit and that would show up in later years affecting your health in bad ways. And they would thank us, take their lemons and limes in various ways and on different time tables to be able to travel and live without a sluggishness which brought them to their regimen with the lemons and limes in the first place.

We began to notice something amazing as we tried to do the same thing – varying it with every guests’ different usage to test for ourselves.

As we tried all these different regimens and combinations of ways to use lemons and limes, we found our weight dropping even when nothing else in our diet or lifestyle changed. We even had one guest use a lemon to rub on his face in the mornings after shaving. He was cute! We noticed it when he came to breakfast with a couple lemon bits still on his skin. When we asked what he’d been doing with the lemons – after an initial embarrassment he admitted to using one lemon each morning to smooth over his face to deal with any cuts or etc. that he might accumulate. Another guest used cut lemons to rub on her elbows and knees. And there were more! It has been a great learning for us!!!

What we have taken from all of these possibilities:

First thing in the morning, we have a lemon or lime with the juice squeezed and put into a half-cup of warm water.

Throughout the day we also have lemon or lime juice – organic, of course, – and at very particular times, which we feel is the secret to this ‘diet’.

When we come in from meetings, shopping, working in the garden, doing whatever that has made us ravenously hungry and pushes us to reach for any and everything we can to satisfy that hunger .- Instead of reaching for those 5 cookies, ice cream, instant whatever that can quench the thirst and hunger, we stop, have one lemon or lime squeezed into a half-glass of warm water and our hunger and thirst is satiated enough that we can think before we reach for those diet disasters and health saboteurs. We have the time and space to work through putting together a substantial, organic meal or snack before we move on to the next thing.

What we’ve found – not only is our hunger satisfied with that half-cup of freshly squeezed organic juice with warm water – but our energy is revived and we are ready to continue our day.

I’ve found that two or three such lemon/lime pick-me-ups during the day satisfies my needs, but it also has me losing weight. Not because I am dieting, but because when I have gone longer than I should have without eating, my hunger and thirst don’t lead me to poor choices. It gives me space to think through what it is I need to eat and time to prepare whatever my choice. I also look better. Somehow, there is a shining through from this regimen that is fantastic. No make-up could do for me what is done to me by those half-cups of juice and warm water. I use half-cups because it is so sour that is all I can get down at one time. And no, I don’t want to use those ‘helpers’ that make lemons taste like sugary confections. Over time, I am becoming more accustomed to the sour taste and my sugar tastes are becoming intolerable of that really sweet stuff. Before this, nothing was too sweet for me and I could never pass a cookie without picking one or two or three up and carrying them away with me.

A couple other friends, who have tried the same thing, have come back looking better, feeling better and are proselytizing their friends in this new way of taking care of their body’s nutritional needs and staying off the bad stuff.

One organic lemon or lime squeezed using a glass juicer – you know the kind, – non-electric, manual labor needed – with 1/2 cup warm water added and off you go to a new life.

If you have a difficult time finding a glass lemon juicer – we found this one and many more at www.laurelleaffarm.com/pages/kitchen&table/antique-glass-reamer-1909-patent.htm

Photo of old antique glass reamer, orange or lemon juicer w/ 1909 patent date

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Tags: bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, health, health and beauty, lemons, limes, prevent obesity, Recipe, weight problems
Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Food Shopping, Health, Health and Beauty, Kitchen Equipment Review, Making Connections, Shopping | Comments Off on A Fantastic Diet for Good Health!

Upholstering Walls – 1st Installment!

Friday, September 7th, 2012

This is an ongoing project – one of several we hope will end with a video which you can access showing the entire process.

The process will be blogged in installments since it is difficult to write for a long time on such a topic!

We talked to many guests, host families, friends, to decide what we could do to get ready for the fall season which would result in our utility bills being reduced over the winter of 2012-2013.

We came up with the upholstering of walls. We’ve started small with one bedroom and the results are beginning to look spectacular. Not only will our utility bills be reduced but the upscaling of the room has been substantial. We have only put up padding on two walls and already our air conditioning is practically non-essential. In spite of very warm weather – over 80 degrees – we turn the air conditioners on in the mornings for about two hours and the room stays cool all day and into the evening. Hopefully, that presages a wonderful savings on the heating bills this winter – AND we haven’t even added the material yet. So lets see what change that makes!!

I was raised in a house where the walls were covered ceiling to floor with draperies – brocade, double lined – to keep out the heat and the cold. I didn’t think much of what that meant until recently when I came across an entry in one of my diaries which described our living room.

Floating the possibility around to everyone who would listen – it started out as weird and ‘historical’, but not for todays home. Since all the conversations started, those we talked to first are coming back to say – ‘hey, that might not be such a bad idea – try it and let us know what happens.’

Well, like everything in this world, it started out as a simple project and now has become all encompassing, consuming and we are looking everywhere to find out ‘how to’.

Lots of people have ideas and some have actually upholstered walls, but that isn’t the way we want it done. Our original purpose was to save on utility bills and secondarily to add to the elegance of our lifestyle. So looking around for the original purpose we found a padding which we have stapled to the walls. No, we didn’t use furring strips. We stapled the padding directly to the walls, stapling around the windows, right below the moulding and right above the floor moulding. Seems there was enough wood or something to hold the padding – dacron.

Our biggest problem was which stapler to use. Almost no one knew anything about an upholstery stapler that we could use for this project.

We searched the internet, old magazines, saved articles, and we drove friends crazy for ‘how to’ possibilities. Stay tuned for what we used!

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Tags: bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Making Connections, reduce utility bills, Saving heat, Upholstering Walls, Whitney Houston
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Bettina’s Tapioca Pudding

Wednesday, August 29th, 2012

A long-known comfort food. We have hearkened back to memories of childhood when desserts were homemade and not full of so many of the non-food ‘stuff’ they now contain.

Organic Tapioca is the basis for this pudding. I searched through many recipe books and came to the conclusion that organic tapioca is a necessary – well maybe I also started out with a bias. However, I came to the conclusion that the tapioca should be organic because of the overwhelming number of recipes which call for cornstarch as the thickening agent in this dish.

At first, I couldn’t understand why one would need a thickening agent in a dish whose core ingredient is itself a thickening agent. Tapicoa is used in many sweet and savory dishes as a thickening agent and it works very well without changing the taste of the dish. I realized why all of these recipe’s contained corn starch when we bought several kinds of Tapioca from Organic to overly processed with a coating of talc to make it look whiter and more matte. The corn starch was necessary because in the processing of tapioca, which is not organic, it loses its thickening properties.

The white matte-looking tapioca was incredible. It was so overly processed that using it made no sense ! – Why was it coated with talc, especially since much of the talc was seen floating in the water or milk that we used to test the tapioca. It was floating in the liquid but it was incorporating itself into the tapioca pudding so we would be eating tapioca and talc. That meant to us its use was purely aesthetic. An aesthetic that gave us a stomach ache since talc is rumored, and in some experiments has shown itself to be a carcinogen. At least that is what we have read. Why especially would you use this kind of overprocessed and staged tapioca in a dish you feed mostly to young children and those longing for their many-years past childhood?

For those of you who don’t know its genesis, tapioca is extracted from the cassava. It is a staple in many areas of the world and is used as a thickening agent in foods. It is gluten-free.

If you have a difficult time finding organic tapioca we suggest you try www.frontiercoop.com and have it mailed to you. It is worth the trouble.

We started with:

——— a small light under 3 cups organic milk in a glass pot.

——— as bubbles formed around the edges of the milk we added 1/2 cup organic tapioca

——— and stirred and stirred making sure nothing was sticking to the pan.

——————-We also added a small amount of himalayan salt to the pan and continued to stir.

———when the milk mixture looked as though it was about to boil we added 1/2 cup sugar

——————-and stirred and stirred and stirred , especially since we did not want the mixture to boil over!!!!!!!

==================We broke two eggs into a mixing bowl and whipped the eggs until they became lighter in color and texture.

==================We added a little of the milk mixture to the eggs very gradually so as to bring the temperature of the eggs up to the

==================temperature of the milk mixture and then added the eggs to the milk mixture

———and stirred and stirred and stirred somemore!!

We continued stirring until the mixture looked like a very good and thick pudding!

We added liquid organic vanilla to the mixture, took it off the heat and stirred until the vanilla was incorporated.

We then poured the mixture into four beautiful stem glasses for serving and put the pudding into the refrigerator.

———If you want more than servings for four – simply double or triple the ingredients!

We let the pudding sit in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes because we like warm, but neither hot nor cold pudding!

When we served this organic tapioca pudding it was excellent and fulfilled every one of our childhood memories.

And when we went to bed that night we stirred and stirred and then stirred the already eaten pudding some more!!

Once you’ve satisfied your longings for tapioca and your childhood you can then add all kind of extra ingredients to create memories for your children unique to their upbringing, but turning back a little to your own:

—————–raisins – coconut – soft nuts or nuts you have crushed – chocolate chips – grated ginger – cinnamon – nutmeg – orange juice –

and the list goes on…………………………

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

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Tags: bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Comfort Food, food shopping, Frontier Co-op, Making Connections, Organic Tapioca, Recipe, Tapioca Pudding
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In Memory of Roger Fisher

Tuesday, August 28th, 2012

by: Marceline Donaldson

Sprinkled through Bettina Network’s Blog you will find memories of people we knew and with whom we have interacted over the years. This time, it is someone who was one of those – along with Larry Susskind of MIT – who were majorly responsible for the growth and survival of Bettina Network, inc.

Roger Fisher was on my mind over the past week – because I wanted to thank him for helping us begin and move forward with the bed & breakfast part of this business. I didn’t know where to find him and didn’t push to discover his whereabouts so the newspaper informed me this morning of Roger Fisher’s death.

A long time ago, in 1984, Roger Fisher and Larry Susskind turned up at our front door to talk about the possibility of using Bettina’s for their guests coming from around the world. I remember Roger Fisher sitting in our living room when one of those working with him took me aside to ask if I knew we were entertaining “God”. That was my introduction to Roger Fisher. My response was – then “God” has come to the right place because we are building heaven’s annex. Clearly, we understood there were at least two major ego’s in that room that day!

We were just starting this business and unlike those who claim to have started on a shoe string of maybe $10,000 in debt, we started this business with some $1,000,000 in debt. I had no idea what I was doing – I knew why – I thought I really knew all there was to know about business – we had some experience with bed & breakfast in another house, but not much – so here we were not sure where we would land, how we would pull this off or where to turn and “God” walked into our living room.

Roger Fisher and Larry Susskind sent us lots of guests and set the tone for what we would become. Larry and Leslie would come to stay when the weather was bad and they couldn’t make it to Southborough. Unfortunately for us, they now live in Cambridge.

Over that time period, there were White and Black South Africans in the house at the same time just across the hall from one another before Nelson Mandela and the dismantling of apartheid. They had never been together before and it was exhilarating for them and for us as they giggled together; went to dinner together; worked together and with Roger and Larry tried to bring about something that hadn’t been seen in South Africa for generations. We became a bit worried when the last two days of their stay the house became as quiet as a tomb. The White South Africans and the Black South Africans had separated; went to dinner in their separate groups; stopped going back and forth from one room to another and generally pulled apart, leaving for the airport in two vans – one with the White South Africans, one with the Black South Africans. We called Larry because we were concerned something had happened and learned about “re-entry”. Something the soul does for you when you are going back into the separatist situation from which you’ve come.

We had Hindu’s in the house the day Gandhi was shot and we were expecting another couple the next day who were Sikh’s. We had Greek Cypriots and Turks’ sharing the house at the same time during some difficult days for them and before all of them we had Russians before Perestroika.

At one point with the Russians we knew we were going to be picked up by the CIA and hauled off to federal prison because we knew nothing about what was coming, we only knew the Russians were the enemy and here they were exchanging research across our breakfast table with their American counterparts and who were their hosts? – Roger Fisher and Larry Susskind.

Our breakfasts were nothing short of sensational and we were heady being able to talk and listen and understand what was happening in the world outside of the very narrow vision of what was normal for Boston and Cambridge. We were spared guests who talked about the weather, their aches and pains and their miscreant children.

We thought this was what bed & breakfast was all about and we shaped a business following the path laid out for us by Roger Fisher and Larry Susskind. Without them we would have taken a different turn and probably would be sitting on the street corner wrapped in a sleeping bag – although a very elegant one!

You go through life and never really know what or how you have touched someone else’s life. My procrastination in reaching out to Roger Fisher to say thank you is kind of typical of the way most of us live with the assumption that life is forever. It is not and those words of gratitude and appreciation need to be said long before the end comes.

This is very late Roger Fisher, but thank you!! Thank you for helping us understand how we could carry that $1 million in debt, survive and grow a business which contributes goodness to life. We don’t pretend to know much about Negotiation the way you and Larry Susskind developed it, but we do know how human and equal we all become around a table sharing food and good conversation – that alone gives hope that one day we will stop the intense violence, pretending that it will solve our conflicts and bring about peace.

Those first few years when we entertained bed & breakfast guests from the Negotiation Project sent to us by Roger Fisher and Larry Susskind were days we shall never forget and days we always keep uppermost in our minds as a paradigm for this Bettina Network business.

We reached the point, in those days, of not wanting to have guests if they did not have great wisdom to contribute over the breakfast table. Today, we have some remembrances of that and we strive to bring everyone who visits our homes and our host families into an understanding of what that was like and how fantastic a business this is when we keep those standards, that conversation, those dreams of a world full of diversity where we can come together, disagree, work through those disagreements and walk into a very bright light after breakfast.

Roger, may you walk into a great light and enjoy the fruits of your life’s work as you enter another sphere of growing in wisdom, knowledge and understanding in a way we will not understand until we reach that end point where we join you in your endeavors.

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Tags: bed & breakfast, Bed and Breakfast in Cambridge MA, Bed and Breakfast in Harvard Square, Bettina Network History, Bettina Network Information, breakfast table talk, Gandhi, Greek Cypriots, Hindus, Historical Home, Larry susskind, Making Connections, Memorial, Negotiation Project, Roger Fisher, Russia, Sikhs, South Africa, Turks
Posted in An editorial just because, Bettina Network Info, Breakfast Table Talk, Growing Old, Historical Support, Making Connections, Memorials, Preserving Family History and Stories | Comments Off on In Memory of Roger Fisher

The Brotherhood

Monday, June 25th, 2012

Today, the American Brotherhood is pulling in its antenna and licking its wounds.

It will be interesting and very educational to see how they come back from the Sandusky Affair.

Normally, the oppressed lose – especially in areas which re-enforce one or more of society’s isms. In this case sexism and pedofilia in sports was rampant and on view for all who didn’t put their heads in the sand. The areas which have our rituals and symbols; which we use to pull in the unsuspecting fans and followers who are just along for the ride – these were the areas under a very high, hot microscope all during the Sandusky revelations. What the fans and followers perceive as the excitement of ‘their team’ winning and losing has been totally exposed for what it is and we see it, for one brief moment, stripped naked.

I was not raised in a sport, nor watching sports games, nor close to anything that had to do with sports. When I became an adult, I was missing the language, history and excitement which sports and sport figures could invoke in most people around me – and for this blessing I am grateful.

To talk about Chopin was not very exciting – especially when one had the option of talking about the local ball game. I didn’t even know which sport the different named ball clubs played. I did know it was all male, all the time and the testosterone which exuded from this area was more than a little overwhelming. Women were included and had a very important place in this Court as cheer leaders, team followers, extras for those times when team members needed more sex. When you think how women and girls were pushed into cheering and accepting all of this if they wanted to exist even on the periphery of society, it is heartbreaking.

Sandusky’s trial has thrown all of that in high relief. This was not simply a case of one man, all by himself, corrupting and destroying the life and future of many mother’s sons. It is a case of one man, because of his position in the sports field, bringing the men in the sport together to support and draw the wagons around him so he could continue his ‘sport’ unafraid and unstoppable. In fact, at one point didn’t he brag to one of his young victims that he was ‘unstoppable?’

I can just hear the furor of those reading this and being quite upset about my painting all sports and participants in sports with the same brush. Well, why not. We have had more scandal in the sports arena than anyplace else. The only area of society which tops politics in its sleeze. The difference between the two comes from the fact that we readily talk about how low one has to stoop to participate in politics. Sports is still a sacred cow. We protect and hunker down to make sure we take out those who would dare to talk out loud about the corrupting influence of sports on everyone.

What is at stake? Have you ever tried to buy a ticket to a game? The cost is prohibitive. Have you noticed how much the players are paid? For doing what? For not growing up past their adolescence and being able to play with each other the way they did at 13, 14, 15, and on? For being ‘real’ men in the locker room for men only where men’s jokes were told, and men bonded in a male way. Women could never come close to this sacred space. In the religion of sports, the sports locker room is its sacristy for its clergy.

Where your money is there also is your value system. Our value system is in the ‘top dogs’ – the sportsmen, the political men, the business men. But the sports area far exceeds the power and prestige of any of the others. What do they have in common? They share a bond around elevating sports to the very highest level and taking their manhood from their ability to participate in, talk about, go to sports events.

What was given to you as a business person for your clients? Tickets to the ballgames because this was a big deal gift. What did you talk about sitting around having coffee? Sports! Who did you want to be around to prove you were really one of the ‘in’ guys? Sports figures – the bigger the sports figure, the more important you looked to those with whom you were trying to do business. And what does our biggest politicans and businessmen want to own? A sports team!

And then comes Sandusky! Opening closed doors – showing us what happens in those ‘male only’ places – initiating young boys into a life which makes them vulnerable to those who come after him. And then comes the Sandusky supporters – sports figures all! Many years of covering-up, hiding, coming together to make sure he was free of and not encumbered by any ‘justice’ issues. Males all! Sports males all!

So what now? Do we eliminate sports? Do we clean it up? Do we go on as if nothing happened? Do we blame Sandusky and try to clean up everyone else? How can we when Sandusky followed the pattern set out by many unrecognized sleeze-its who came before. He became big in his field – too big to fail. He lived his life so the conscience of others could be eased – he set up a foundation to help others (although there are claims that he set it up to corral young boys so he wouldn’t have to go out looking and risking) – he kept the façade of a family man with a loving family – he was almost the beat your chest Tarzan guy from whom one would expect to hear the jungle call at any moment.

When all of this broke, I went back to look at some old film of Sandusky at work – sometimes surrounded by those who ‘protected’ him from the potetial charges of his young victims. The film shows him being held up by those around him – held in high esteem by those who knew the truth of his activities with young boys. In some films he looks invincible! Given what I watched, I don’t see how any of his victims had the courage to come forward. He looked like an awesome, respectable, very much in control of his sport kind of guy.

To try to modernize sports – with the success of the Women’s Movement – we have allowed in a very small percentage of women as players. Not women making the kind of money the men make, but enough to have kept the civil righters from marching against the sports establishment.

With sports came men’s clubs – closed to women and non-whites. At one time they were only open to Northern Europeans, but over time some non-Northern Europeans were allowed in. In many private men’s clubs, they kept the curious and more aggressive women out by putting their locker room at the entrance to the club. To enter one had to go through the locker rooms and the locker rooms were a reflection of the sports arena’s locker rooms.

Suffice it to say, it is time to take down and dismantle this bastion of male superiority which is one of the ground floor structures of sexism – racism and pedofilia. It used to be the ground floor structure of all the -isms before teams were forced to accept African American and other minority males. And what happened when those doors were open? You can’t tell the difference. Those minorities taken in totally reflect what went before – to a color blind person, there has been very little change. With the exception that minority sports figures are hung out to dry if they are not squeaky clean. That should speak to them loud and clean.

Now What!

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Tags: bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Sandusky
Posted in Bettina's Hall of Shame, Breakfast Table Talk, Making Connections | Comments Off on The Brotherhood

Marriage Talk at a Bettina Network Home

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2012

Must tell you about this breakfast. We had a priest and a lawyer at the table and thought this would be kind of boring. However, it turned out to be unbelievable.

I will give you, dear reader, highlights – you dear editor, write too many words when you blog:)

I don’t know how we got onto the subject of marriage because I was in the kitchen – got to cook breakfast, you know. No lounging around talking at the table. I have to catch snippets of conversations.

What was most striking was, it turned around my traditional view of marriage. I thought marriage was a ceremony performed by the Church, Synagogue, Temple, etc. and I don’t know where I put the marriage license which I know is issued by a governmental entity, but I just didn’t think about all of the details until this conversation.

Turns out, marriage is a civil contract dictated by the State. To officiate at someone’s wedding you must be licensed by the State. If a priest is ordained that doesn’t mean he can marry anyone. He/she can only do that if the priest got a license from the State in addition to his/her ordination. Anyone can get a license to marry anyone. You can get a license to perform one marriage ceremony or you can get a continuing license to perform the marriage ceremony for lots of people as an ongoing thing and you don’t have to be ordained to apply for and obtain such a license. Oh – all of my sacred cows are being toppled!!!!!!!!!!!! Maybe I should just stay in the kitchen and cook and stay out of the dining room.

Actually, according to the priest, the two people marry themselves. The person officiating is only there as a witness and doesn’t really do the marrying – it is all between the two people and their community of friends.

The lawyer pointed out that if we had problems believing that then we should recognize that once married, to get divorced that is a State process. If you get ‘divorced’ by your religious institution and re-marry you will be called a bigamist and be subject to the penalties which can generally mean jail time. So, if it were a religious institutions thing to marry you, it would be the religious institutions thing to grant or deny you a divorce.

The priest said his job was to ‘bless’ the marriage. When you go to a wedding and the couple goes off to the sacristy or the small room next to the altar where they are supposedly being ‘married’, that is the point at which they are really married. They sign all the documents and it becomes official. The signing doesn’t have to be done in a side room, but it generally is to take the congregations mind off the fact that this is a State ceremony not a religious ceremony.

Isn’t that something!!! And all the time I thought the religious people were the ones doing the marrying of people. Then why are the religious institutions so upset about this new thing of men marrying men and women marrying women? And – more than that, I now undertand why it was so important for the future of marriage and the shape it will take when Obama came out to give same sex marrying his ‘blessing.’ He can’t marry anyone unless he is licensed by the State in which they are being married, but its nice to have the President of all the States ‘blessing’ marriage. Now I get it!

So what does all this mean? Now that my eyes are open they are taking in all kind of questions. If ‘marriage’ is a state institution, why was marriage as a civil contract so upsetting to the homosexual and lesbian communities? They could have entered into a civil contract just like any businesses or individuals enter into.

When the Church says “what God has joined together let no one put asunder” – does that mean we are equating God to the State? What does a religious institutions ‘divorce’ or ‘annulment’ mean? Since they bless the marriage does that mean their ‘divorce’ means they are taking back that blessing – especially since that is all they do? They can’t break a civil contract so where do we go from here?

How does a civil contract become a sacrement of the Church? Doesn’t this violate the separation of Church and State? Oh my! I could go on and on and on. Would the Homosexual/Lesbian community been better off fighting to redefine the benefits of this State Institution so the rest of us could also benefit? – like – should the benefits of today’s marriage be automatically given to one’s ‘spouse’ – as defined under our current mess of a marriage structure or should the person be able to decide who gets these benfits? – like Who can visit them in the hospital when it is closed to all except close family?, – who gets their Social Security benefits, etc. etc.

The marriage laws in the U. S. were based on the slavery laws which existed before Emancipation of the African slaves – what does that mean for the institution of marriage. All of this fighting for same sex marriage hasn’t addressed any of that. Are the homosexual and lesbian communities fighting for one of their marriage partners to be the ‘slave’ and the other to be the ‘free and superior person’? What for! Or – Is this fight for same sex marriage really a tool being used to change the conversation – from reform of the institution to granting a new group the right to marry and to participate in the same old institution which saw an unbelievably huge number of divorces take place with children, property, etc. all destroyed – and the State Marriage Laws being used as a tool for the redistribution of property to others outside the marriage – like lawyers and their associated helpers in this divorce process? (The lawyer didn’t bring up that one – that’s my question and observation.)

All of these years and I thought the priest was marrying all those people whose weddings I attended and all along that was just not true. He/she was there as a representative of the State – not even there as a representative of their particular religious institution – and the couple were the real ‘ministers’ at their wedding.

What one learns in bed & breakfast is astounding! Wouldn’t give it up for the world.

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Tags: bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, who performs the marriage ceremony
Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Historical Support, Making Connections | Comments Off on Marriage Talk at a Bettina Network Home

Breakfast Table Talk about Debit Cards

Sunday, May 6th, 2012

We’ve had a two day breakfast session. The first morning we casually talked about banks, credit cards, debit cards and the rip-off happening to all of us. One guest at the table was a banker. I should say a disillusioned banker who was dealing with how to maintain the ethical base with which he was raised and continue to work for a bank – or should he change jobs!! It was fascinating stuff to take home and think about.

In todays market that is a difficult option, especially since he has worked in banks most of his adult life and it was his chosen field. He is still pretty young, but after several years in the banking world it takes a better economy than the one in which we are functioning to allow him to make such a change.

The disillusioned banker and the woman who was confused about her debit card provided us with two days of great conversation and amazing information. She wanted to know what we thought about debit cards and that sent the conversation off to the races.

The banker gave her an analysis, which is why the conversation carried on into the next day. She went back to her room, pulled up her bank statement from her computer, printed it and brought it to breakfast the next morning. She was still confused as to what the debit card cost her and she wanted to take advantage of being able to talk to a banker, who was not her own banker and who was in a mood to provide accurate information, which she didn’t expect her banker to do.

He looked at her bank statement – which kind of freaked out the rest of us with all of our privacy issues – but we were just as interested in seeing her bank statement as was the banker and it got passed around the table. I have never experienced that before – ever.

When he finished calculating what it cost her to use a debit card we were all ready to cut up all of our cards – credit as well as debit cards. Thought the rest of you might be interested in this analysis so it follows in as good a recollection and synopsis as I can come up with. I wish I could give you the figures, but I didn’t want to be too obvious and she had already braved her privacy needs to bring her bank statement to breakfast so I don’t want to make her particular figures public. You probably wouldn’t know her anyway, but I still can’t overcome my huge privacy needs to even give you the particulars on Ms. Anonymous:

1) She liked the fact that money was immediately moved from her checking account whenever she made a purchase with her debit card – kept her honest, she said. The banker said she shouldn’t be so happy about that because even though the amount of money she received on her balance was really small, it was her money and when she had this immediate withdrawal upon using the card, she was receiving less money that month on her balances than if she used a check to pay for her purchases. Since she used her debit card several times during the month, that could add up as that meant there were many days during which her balances were reduced prematurely when money was withdrawn immediately upon the use of the card.

By using a check instead of a debit card for her purchases, the money would stay in her account two or three days longer and for someone who had a minimum balance to maintain for the kind of account she had, that could be important and could begin to add up to nice amounts of money. Although from her bank statement she wasn’t hurting for money – still as the banker said, it was her money and she should not be prey to the banks, thinking up new ways to relieve her of her funds.

Well, that was an eye opener which none of us thought about before, but not a biggy since we realized something like that was going on – the bank benefiting from one of its products and we losing money from the same. It is what we have been conditioned to look at as ‘normal’ and ‘acceptable’ banking practices. It was just a few dollars to us, but major income for the bank when they could keep our money in their account instead of in ours and get a free ride with a huge accumulation of such monies for a couple days.

“Our banker” as we began to call him, then calculated what the bank was making – in addition to the money moving from her account to theirs’ where it ‘cured’ for a few days with their pennies making pennies for them instead of our pennies making pennies for us, before it was collected by whatever entity it was going to for her purchases.

2) Every time you make a purchase with your debit card, the merchant you are paying has to pay the bank somewhere around 1 or 2 percent or some where inbetween to pay for the cost of making that transaction possible. We didn’t understand that. We knew that happened with credit cards, but didn’t understand why that cost wasn’t paid by the monies the bank made by keeping our money for the two or three days float they managed to secure by the way they set up the use of the debit card. We wanted to know why this extra charge was being put on our purchases – especially since we all knew the merchant would have to pass that cost along to us as an addition to the cost of whatever purchase we were making. No answer from anyone at the table until someone said the magic word “GREED”.

3) The third way banks make money on debit cards is via the ATM machines. Some banks charge to use their ATM machine and some don’t, so we didn’t consider that banks making money on our debit card use, but they do. So now I will always go to my bank to cash a check because my bank charges for use of their ATM machine – I never seem to be in the category of no charge for use of those machines. She wasn’t either since her bank statement showed several ATM charges. OR when I make a deposit I will take cash out with which to survive so I don’t have to go to the ATM machines.

Wow! After that I am paying for my purchases by check and having cash on hand to pay for the little things so I don’t have to use either credit or debit card or ATM machine. The next thing you know I will be withdrawing my cash from under my mattress – talk about back to the past. Why did we need banks in the first place?

Not one of the above was a lot of money for any one of us, but when you add them all together and multiply by tens of thousands of such amounts, the bank is doing very well and we are not doing so well. This is hard-earned money the bank takes away from most of us. The bank gets very fat; messes over people like us who provide them with an incredibly luxurious lifestyle and we get to scrimp our pennies to live just reasonably well. No wonder the Occupy people are out on the streets. I am beginning to better understand some of their issues.

My debit card is no longer usable because I cancelled it right after that breakfast. The bank said I didn’t need to cancel the card I should just stop using it and keep it for emergencies. Somehow, I didn’t think that was said in my best interest so I insisted that the card be cancelled.

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Tags: Banks and Banking, bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, economic downturn, politics
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Society Overwhelmed by Pedophilia?

Thursday, April 19th, 2012

ED. NOTE: I had to think long and hard before publishing this, however, it was a breakfast table discussion and everyone was very passionate about this so we print it for you to read and think about.

Breakfast started innocently enough with one guest having read an article that morning about a priest being defrocked because of the sexual abuse of children. None of us was particularly interested in the topic until one person put forward her theory and then the breakfast table came alive.

We have all heard and read more than we ever wanted to know about this disease. It has taken center stage often over the past several years and we wanted to know what has caused such a large outbreak. What has happened to society that this is something we have to worry about and from which we have to protect our children?

What changed and has moved forward and grown in the same time frame that Pedophilia has been on the rise in the society and is related!!!

If you have gone to a major fashion show over the past 30 or more years and especially watched the shows of the hot, new and well-known fashion designers, whose clothes command four, five and sometimes six figures, I am sure you’ve noticed that the models are about 13, 14, 15 years old. They look more like little boys than young women who can carry off elegant designs. The designers and their models – the children – who strut down the runways, have had an enormous influence in the society – as has their “strut.”

Years ago – in ancient times – back in the 1950’s, one had to be 35 years or older to be a model because the clothes were very elegant and meant for women, not for the too thin, malnourished-druggie looking young kids who are too underdeveloped to be the women they are trying to mimic and replace. We wondered if some of these young children weren’t pre-puberty! And where were their parents?

As the fashion industry changed and the models became ever younger with the clothes designed to make young girls look like young boys, pedophilia began its rise.

We were not worried about offending anyone in this conversation because it was just us talking around the breakfast table about something we all had been thinking, but no one had the courage to say out loud because we all thought, maybe we were on the wrong track and had gotten the wrong opinion – after all, would not the media, the magazines, the arbiters of good taste, who love to criticize and find the flaw in everything, have come out knocking this if such a horrid pedophilia-encouraging development were connected? But that “wrong” opinion was shared by everyone around the table. A couple felt relieved to be able to say these things out loud and not be put down or ridiculed.

It has been difficult to be over 35 and a size 12 or 14 and find clothes that are elegant and wonderful on your body. We’ve had many friends talking about “augmenting” their breasts and we wondered – what on earth for – the clothes you buy don’t fit anyone, even a size 4 who has a breast-size larger than a 32 double A. – The ideal female figure to fit into these clothes is stick straight – with none or very few curves which are then hidden and minimized.

The “glamour” “top” models are curve-less. The older models who have to think about retiring or about getting into something else, are about 35. When someone still looks pretty terrific at 49 it is considered quite an achievement. We knew and know women in their 60’s, 70’s and 80’s who look sensational. It was a common occurrence decades ago. Today, we consider them over the hill and ancient. In the 1950’s they were the ones wearing the designer original clothes and looking exceptionally good in them because their age and experience allowed them to carry off these beautiful clothes.

We didn’t know how this phenomena of the rise of the 13 to 20 year old super model connects with pedophilia, but it certainly appeared to us that one was the genesis of the other.

We knew there were pedophiles in society before today. But the difference between today and way back in ancient times is in the numbers and the fact that today, children are not safe and parents have to keep a vigilant, constant eye out for adults trying to solicit their child. And the children walking down the adult runways in the top fashion shows in New York, Paris, etc. have changed the age range – and the definition of what is sexy. Years ago, it was a mature woman. Today, it is a child.

When the definition of what is sexy is changed to a 13 year old emaciated child either with make-up to look like someone on an extended bad drug trip or naturally looking like that because that is indeed their problem, then it seemed to us that increasing incidents of pedophilia and increasing numbers of pedophiles in this society is the natural result.

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Tags: bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, children, designer originals, fashion shows, high fashion
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A Weight Loss Tip!

Wednesday, April 11th, 2012

Over the breakfast table we heard about cinnamon and weight loss. We tried it and amazingly it works. We tried the suggestion which said have a cup of warm milk (whole milk – preferably non-homogenized and non-pasteurized, but if you can’t get that the regular pasteurized milk is fine. The non-homogenized is available under the “Sky Top” brand available at Whole Foods and possibly other places.

Make sure the cinnamon is the real cinnamon or Ceylon Cinnamon. After trying it for a couple weeks I am down 6 pounds.

I would suggest you try this for a few weeks and then go off the cinnamon. The body is an amazing thing – it acclimates to what you are doing very easily so to keep the cinnamon for weight loss viable, give it up after a few weeks and take it up again later.

You might try raspberry ketones as a substitute for the cinnamon in warm milk when you give it up. We have not tried this, but I heard about it on Dr. Oz. He said his “medical group” looked into this and found it effective for weight loss.

We also ‘googled’ cinnamon for weight loss and found many articles saying how great it is – so our bed & breakfast guest who talked about this and got everyone excited about the possibilities knew what she was talking about.

We also understand it might be effective against diabetes because of how Ceylon cinnamon acts in the body relative to your blood sugar levels.

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Another Civil War in America

Friday, April 6th, 2012

This could be subtitled “democracy vs dictatorship”.

It was a very exciting morning to be a part of a discussion on this topic which I had not thought about in terms of our being in the middle of a civil war between those who want us to be a democracy and those who prefer the corporate structure to carry over into our government structure and who would like our president to be a corporate-type leader rather than the head of a democratic government. It has been staring me in the face for years and I just didn’t get it. This breakfast was like a light coming on – hey, that is really where we are. It is becoming more overt and not happening on a covert level anymore, so the din is getting louder from those who object and who are fighting to maintain a democracy against those who are moving to take it over and convert it into a corporate-type structure (more so than it is already).

Corporate executives are not elected by the general populace – sometimes by an executive committee and sometimes by just a couple people at the top – appointed by those who control behind the scenes.

I have been very upheaveled about the political scene and what is going on with the Democratic and Republican parties, but to think of it as a civil war and a huge fight between the forces of democracy and those trying to turn this country into a dictatorship is a new idea.

The discussion moved fast and furious. It started with a few minutes talk about the media’s role. It was about the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on political campaigns. We have gone crazy trying to secure power for four years by spending like ‘drunken sailors’.

Projected from the primary to the Presidential Campaign it looks as though some two billion dollars or more will be spent. Spent on what? It will be spent on the media, the poll takers, the candidate and his retinue. Even on clothes so the political candidates and their families will look the part – remember the fight which broke out between Sara Palin and those who thought she spent too much of the campaigns money on clothes? That was but a drop in the bucket compared to the amount spent on poll takers. They must live off these campaigns – telling them on a minute by minute basis almost where everyone is -what the public is doing – which way they are leaning, etc. IT seemed to us that an honest politician wouldn’t need so much money if he or she didn’t feel they needed to support the poll taker companies in high style. When did that happen? You can’t run today – or so some politicians think – if you can’t afford to pay the multi-millions to the pollsters.

The money spent with the media will also be enormous – no wonder their reporting is so skewered. Would the media be able to survive without the political campaigns? It is spent, apparently – according to this breakfast table talk – to entertain the masses who will get caught up in the drama of it all and not see the lack of substance.

We have had breakfast table talk in the past about how campaigns and the politicians in the Senate and the House are looking more and more like Southern politicians from the days of Huey Long and friends – or even Strom Thurman and his buddies. The fighting, name calling, oppressing one group against the other to get the public angry so they will vote for you out of that anger and need to be protected against the sub-humans, etc. – that all has been going on in the Southern United States for generations. It was very entertaining; vicious; lively and when it was over everyone went back to being friends and family. This political fighting is such that when it is over one won’t be able or want to go back to being friends and family. We will all be us and them, the good and the bad, those who are with us and the enemy outside of our group.

This breakfast conversation had more than a modicum of truth. Our businesses are oligarchies with the little guys struggling to succeed under the weight of the oligarchies which are tryiing to make sure they don’t succeed – or if it looks as though the little guys may be on to something in their struggling businesses, to gobble them up before they get too strong a toehold. I had not thought of our politicians as fighting it out for the corporate leaders to be the power people and to destroy the democratic leaders because they get in the way.

Corporations in a democratic society are an anomaly to begin with. They have money and power and have been gradually taking over trying to move us to the brink of fascism or, at the very least, dictatorship. We have reached the tipping point and all of a sudden everyone is waking up to see they may soon be living in a country which is on its way to becoming controlled by the few – with the vote gone – the democracy a thing of the past – and where did these corporate fellows come from? They used to stay in their corporations, working hard to make lots of money and now they are all over the place running for office or putting up multi-millions for their minions to run for office and the country changes. And I do mean fellows because women don’t fit in this scenario. Well, maybe they fit a little as distractions to push up front with the name calling, the anger making, an excuse for the rough stuff.

I was amazed to hear what is going on in Michigan. Democracy is being replaced with a dictatorship or worse under the name of saving the state from bankruptcy or worse. Democracy does have its problems and to solve them can be a messy process, especially if you want to solve the problems in the context of the democracy and not change to the more efficient fascist model. The democratic model will be lots of people involved trying things that don’t work and hitting on some that do work almost by accident; being concerned about the freedom and interest of the minority as well as the majority; and being ethical in choices even though it is not the most expedient way to do things. If you prefer the dictatorship, fascist model that is efficient, quick and oppressive to the many who then have to live under that system then your results will be quick and look good for a time, until the price, all those who have to live under that dictatorship, have to pay becomes obvious and they begin to have to pay the price of no freedom, no vote, no voice in their government, etc.

It was quite a breakfast and will cause me to think long and hard about choices in this coming election time!!! And in the times after this one – to make my choices dependent upon who respects this system more and wants to see it maintained and refined along the lines of a democracy – not changed into something less with the excuse that dictatorships work better. What is not said – they work better for the very few who succeed and thrive while the sacrifices of the many become more destructive to those who have to support the success of the few.

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Tags: bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, democracy, dictatorships, politics
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A Thought for the Day

Monday, March 26th, 2012

Friends are people who were and are there when no one else is …………………

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Washing Linens, Towels and everything else

Sunday, March 11th, 2012

We have been trying for several years to come up with the best way to wash bed linens and bathroom towels – because that is important in bed & breakfast.

We were especially concerned about having soft towels and the smell which we sometimes could not get out of the sheets without several washings.

We tried every fabric softener on the market. They all do the same thing and none really great. -They give the towels, particularly, a slimy feel rather than a clean fluffy feel. The towels, after they have been through the wash with fabric softener, are too soft and too greasy to think that is a good solution. Having done a bit of research on this, I find that is because the fibers are coated with chemicals – that can’t be good! Especially when the results we were trying to achieve were not happening. And, what happens to the chemicals which coat the towel fabric? Do they go on your face when you wipe with the towels? Or on other parts of the body?

Trying to wash towels and bed linens without a fabric softener left the towels really scratchy and uncomfortable to use. You wouldn’t want to wrap up in the very large bath towels because that would not meet the ‘feel good warm and cozy’ test.

We received many suggestions about putting White Vinegar into the rinse water. However, after having worked with White Vinegar and knowing from whence it has come, we discarded that idea.

We put organic apple cider vinegar with the ‘mother’, in the washing machine in the small box which asks for fabric softener.

We fully expected to ruin all of the clothes in the machine because we expected there would be residue from the organic apple cider vinegar, especially since we were using the ‘mother’ so we couldn’t think beyond = ‘there goes the wash’.

We couldn’t use a lot of the apple cider vinegar because the container of our LG Washing machine would only hold what seemed to be less than 1/4 cup, so while we tried it anyway, our hopes were not high for success.

The results, however, were spectacular.

With bed & breakfast guests, some are exceptionally clean and their bedding doesn’t have an odor when they leave. Some people, even though they wash, leave behind an odor in the sheets which doesn’t always leave after the sheets have been through the wash, so we have been super concerned to get the odors out. Basically, we assumed if there was an odor there was bacteria still in the sheets and towels.

Putting organic apple cider vinegar in the fabric softener container of the washing machine solved the problem. And weren’t we surprised!! We found organic apple cider vinegar worked wonders as an anti-perspirant, but we couldn’t make the leap to the washing machine.

When the clothes came out of the washer, there was no odor left in any of the sheets, towels or clothes. The towels were softened to perfection. They had no slimy feel, which happened when we used commercial fabric softeners. We don’t have to worry about people being allergic to the linens or towels because of how and with what they were washed and the towels were neither too soft nor too hard and scratchy. The towels were sturdy enough to allow one to dry one’s face when you wanted a little roughness to get the blood circulating, but not much. And they were soft and nice enough to please those who wanted soft towels. The same thing happened to the bathrobes. They are perfect after coming out of the organic apple cider vinegar rinse.

My great-grandmother used to put her clothes through a vinegar rinse – I should have had more respect and given her the credit she deserved for the things she knew and did. Is this how sexism works? – hand and glove with the marketing and advertising machine? If young people don’t learn the lessons from their families, but from what used to be called “Madison Avenue” we are all doomed to destruction- a slow excruciatingly painful destruction via cancer, and all the other degenerative diseases.

How fantastic is it to find something your great-grandmother used on a daily basis with no bells and whistles. That was just how she did things. It can make you feel kind of foolish to know what you have looked all over creation for was right under your nose from the time you were a child. I have the marketing and advertising people to thank for that, along with the forces in society which made me turn to my peers rather than my family to learn these kinds of lessons. Now I understand why Martha Stewart became such a phenom. All the lessons we didn’t learn and when we turned around to try to back track to learn them we could not break through the veil. The silence from our families could not be bridged.

I used to think my grandmother and great-grandmother were really out of touch with today’s society and here I find if I turn back to try to remember what they did, it is safer, purer and better for all of us. Now, not everything they did is so relevant, but I will be going over their lifestyle as I remember it to see what else I can salvage. I am sure many of you have or are experiencing the same thing. Give your mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers credit, gratitude and thanks.

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Tags: Apple cider vinegar, bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, fluffy towels, health, Housekeeping, washing clothes
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A Final Tribute

Thursday, February 16th, 2012

Ed. Note: Because we had so much response to the Bettina Network Blog on Whitney Houston and because we had questions we couldn’t properly answer and comments we didn’t want to put in the blog – there would have been many by now – mostly repetitive – we decided to reprint (with permission) – this article written by Marc Morial, who has written a fantastic column which covers it all and we commend this to you without reservations or further comments.

“The Incomparable Whitney Houston
To Be Equal #7

Syndicated Weekly Column by National Urban League President & CEO Marc H. Morial
“To me Whitney was THE VOICE. We got to hear a part of God every time she sang.” – Oprah Winfrey on the death of Whitney Houston

FEBRUARY 15, 2012 – Billie Holiday was 44. Judy Garland was 47. Dinah Washington was 39. Michael Jackson was 51. Jimi Hendrix was 28. Janis Joplin was 27. Amy Winehouse was 28. And Whitney Houston lived only 48 years on this earth. I was one of millions of people around the world who were stunned to learn of the untimely death of pop-music queen, Whitney Houston last Saturday. Like so many other entertainers who died too young, Whitney was blessed with a divine talent but also haunted by a heavy load of troubles.

Throughout much of the 1980’s and 90’s, Whitney Houston reigned as the undisputed queen of pop. With songs like “The Greatest Love of All,” and “I Will Always Love You,” she set a standard as an octave-shattering virtuoso who brought both elegance and a gospel-tinged intensity to her work in studio and on stage. That was surely a natural outgrowth of her church choir roots and being the daughter of classy gospel legend, Cissy Houston.

Whitney got her start singing in the junior choir of Newark, New Jersey’s New Hope Baptist Church, where her mother has served as Minister of Music for decades. Whitney also undoubtedly benefited from the influences of other great musical talents in her family. Dionne Warwick was her cousin. And Aretha Franklin was her Godmother. But, Whitney was a pure original.

In addition to setting the music world on fire and influencing such performers as Mariah Carey, Beyoncé and Jennifer Hudson, Whitney also excelled as an actress, and had starring roles in such movies as “The Bodyguard,” “Waiting to Exhale” and “The Preacher’s Wife.” Her final film, “Sparkle,” a remake of the 1976 movie about three sisters from Harlem who form a singing group, is set to be released in August.

It is a sad irony that Whitney Houston died on the eve of this year’s Grammy Awards. The winner of six Grammys herself, Whitney was preparing to attend a pre-Grammy party given by her mentor, the legendary music producer, Clive Davis. Her body was found Saturday afternoon in the bath tub of her room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles. As of this writing, the exact cause of her death is still unknown.

In her 2009 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Whitney revealed for the first time, some of the most intimate details about her troubled marriage to Bobby Brown, the deep feelings she had for her mother and her daughter, Bobbie Kristina, and her struggles with drugs. She candidly admitted to Oprah that at times “It was too much. So much to try to live up to, to try to be, and I wanted out.” Through it all, Whitney said she was constantly reading her bible and trying to get back to God. While we are all shocked and saddened by her death, I am hopeful that Whitney Houston’s life and incomparable musical gifts will inspire others to let nothing stand in the way of the full and healthy expression of their God-given talents. Our thoughts and prayers are with Cissy, Bobbie Kristina and the entire Houston family.”

And from the Bettina Network:
May the Lord Bless and Keep you Whitney,
May God’s face shine upon you and be gracious unto you;
May God lift up that exquisite, peaceful and loving countenance upon you and give you peace
Now and forever….Amen and Amen!

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Tags: African American history, bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Whitney Houston
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Good Words around the Breakfast Table

Thursday, February 16th, 2012

“No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

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Thanks for the Whitney Houston Blog!

Monday, February 13th, 2012

I read the blog and was homesick for my Bettina fix – to use the current language being thrown around about Whitney Houston! I love staying in your homes. You didn’t say which home had this breakfast conversation. It doesn’t matter. I’ve stayed in two different homes, loved every minute and went home excited about life.

I appreciated the blog because I expect every media will be rushing to get out a story of how Whitney Houston died from drugs – whether its true or not – they have to create that impression. The same thing happened with Michael Jackson. It is so sad that we don’t have a media doing great investigative reporting and giving us the results, which are facts and not this mythological creation.

My concern is for Whitney’s daughter. With her mother gone, Bobbi Brown will probably be a larger influence on her and that is so sad. After helping to destroy her mother, the other women in Whitney’s family – who are clearly very strong and very independent, need to take hold of this young woman and keep Bobbi Brown away. That sounds cruel, but she needs a chance to get to adulthood and into a secure life without him taking advantage of a very vulnerable moment in her life and working his ugliness.

I am sure he loves his daughter, but from everything I’ve seen he will not take care of her in a way that is beneficial to her, but to him and we have seen what that meant in Whitney Houston’s life. The sorry thing about that is I don’t think Bobbi Brown is aware of just how negative an influence he is on the women in his life. That is the tragedy of all of this – he will continue and probably live a long life destroying women along the way.

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Whitney Houston Around the Breakfast Table!

Sunday, February 12th, 2012

One never knows in which direction breakfast table talk will go! Talking around a table with people you don’t know and probably won’t meet again, but there you are, breaking bread with strangers who feel like old friends. It is an incredibly freeing experience.

Ed Note: That is one of the things which makes bed & breakfast such a great way to travel.

This morning, of course, the topic was Whitney Houston all the time. It was an amazing conversation.

To share some of the highlights:

1. There was a comparison made with Whitney Houston and Michael Jacksons death.

Both deaths happened at the point where both people were in the process of organizing and rolling out a comeback!

Michael Jackson was preparing a large tour which – the conjecture was – probably made more money because of his death because people were more focused on him with the thought that this would be the last time they would see something from Michael Jackson, except for older performances.

Whitney Houston filmed Sparkle and it is to open in August. The conjectures continued that attention will be far more focused and many more people will see it than if she were still alive and moving to do other things. As they will to her other products. Now someone other than Whitney Houston will organize and put out for public consumption her ‘come back’ – as happened with Michael Jackson. And, they will probably make more money for themselves or for their investors especially with the timing of this death.

2. There was talk of her life:
She was a fantastic woman – full of light and ‘sparkle’ until she married Bobbi Brown. Then the realities of ‘choice’ entered her life. The reality of living in a society full of sexism, especially against an African American woman; the reality of being a huge celebrity with so many people around and about trying to control another human being for their own benefit. Much talk about the arrogance and very negative influences on her from Bobbi Brown. How different her life could have been had she made another choice. No one doubted that Brown loved her, he was just so self absorbed and living on the negative side of life dragging her with him, he was a horrible choice for her to overcome.

There was talk about her having overcome that part of her life, which was awesome.

There was talk about the drugs coming into her life with Bobbi Brown.

Breakfast table talk about Houston’s death became very intense with lots of questions about why now? and much talk that one could call conspiracies developing around the table. Mostly, questions about who – among those who managed her and/or benefitted from her professional life – stood to gain the most and who could have done this, if it was not an accident. By this time, it was all around the internet and commented on by a few tv people that she drowned in her bathtub – and that, I think, is what generated the conspiracy theories which were in full swing around the table.

There was laughter and a few good jokes about the LA Police being the ones to investigate this – as they did Michael Jacksons death – so nothing was expected except cover-up if there was something wrong here, or a not very thorough investigation if not.

It could have been the coffee, but it was an amazing conversation.

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Archive for the ‘Breakfast Table Talk’ Category

Secretary of State???

Petraeus over Breakfast

Thanks for your Presidential Post!

Politics at Breakfast? I’m Shocked

A Fantastic Diet for Good Health!

Upholstering Walls – 1st Installment!

Bettina’s Tapioca Pudding

In Memory of Roger Fisher

The Brotherhood

Marriage Talk at a Bettina Network Home

Breakfast Table Talk about Debit Cards

Society Overwhelmed by Pedophilia?

A Weight Loss Tip!

Another Civil War in America

A Thought for the Day

Washing Linens, Towels and everything else

A Final Tribute

Good Words around the Breakfast Table

Thanks for the Whitney Houston Blog!

Whitney Houston Around the Breakfast Table!

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