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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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Tags: bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Governor Patrick, John Kerry, Making Connections, politics, Scot Brown, Secretary of State, Susan Rice
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

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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Tags: bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Dallas, I Dream of Jeannie, Larry Hagman, Making Connections, Memorial, Sexism, sexism in television
Posted in Bettina's Hall of Fame, Breakfast Table Talk, Making Connections | Comments Off on A Larry Hagman breakfast!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wednesday, November 21st, 2012

“Thou has given so much to me,” poet George Herbert wrote,

“Give one thing more, – a grateful heart.”

A quote in Samuel T. Lloyd’s Thanksgiving message in the Trinity Church newsletter.

Some things say it all – there is nothing more to add except the wishes and prayers we send to you and your family for a Thanksgiving which brings up old memories and shows you all sides; which makes wonderful new memories to carry you through this life wrapped in their warmth and love, and which brings truth, wisdom, and wonder into your life and the lives of your family!

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Tags: bed & breakfast, Happy Thanksgiving, Samuel Lloyd, Samuel T. Lloyd, Trinity Church Copley Square
Posted in Holiday Greeting, Making Connections, Samuel T. Lloyd | Comments Off on Happy Thanksgiving!

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???

Veterans’ Day – 2012

Saturday, November 17th, 2012

Memorial Church – Harvard University

We celebrated Veterans Day by piling all of our guests into our car and their car and going to Memorial Church in Harvard Yard.

It was a great day for everyone. Memorial Church was dedicated in 1932 to the memory of the Harvard dead of World War I and now also contains memorials of the dead of World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and the graduates of Radcliffe College who died in World War I. So it was the 80th anniversary of Memorial Church.

There were prayers for many illustrious names which you can recognize as being solidly a part of the New England Establishment – we prayed for Coolidges, Appletons, Nobles, Peabody’s, Woodworth’s, Ferris’ and of course, Gomes, Pusey, and Lowell, among others. I prayed for Mary Daly, whose sermon on a Sunday in Memorial Church caused many to rethink and changed lives, for Benjamin Mays from Morehouse College and so many more who chose uncomfortable – sometimes painful lives instead of comfortable existences which they could have had but for the prophetic pull which determined their life’s path and brought them to the pulpit of Memorial Church. Each, out of their own lives issued challenges from that most traditional of Churches.

President Drew Faust was present because it was also the day of the Institution Service for the new minister of Memorial Church. Rev. Peter Gomes died last year and his loss was huge. Rev. Jonathan L. Walton is the new minister and if the few remarks he made during the service were any indication of what to expect in the future his should be an interesting and thought provoking ministry, challenging many. He started his sentences with “We come to honor a Palestinian Jew who was executed…..” If that is any indication of his preaching, pastoring and prophetic sides his tenure at Memorial Church should be inspiring and challenging.

The bell tolled “In Memory of Voices that are Hushed” and in the process an honor guard of Harvard ROTC students placed a wreath of laurel in the Memorial Room.

After the service, the reception was right where you were seated in the Church. We just mingled while Harvard students who worked as waiters and waitresses served wonderful small edibles – savory and sweet along with drinks. It was an unusual ending since such receptions are held in another room or in the basement or someplace out of the way. To just stand-up at the end of the service to see Harvard students serving you as you greeted those you haven’t seen in a long time or talked about the service, or listened to others talk about the new minister was a new and different ending. Hopefully, the spirit which filled Memorial Church on November 11th will continue.

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Tags: bed & breakfast, Bed and Breakfast in Harvard Square, breakfast table talk, Harvard University's Memorial Church, Making Connections, Mary Daly, Memorial, Memorial Church, Peter Gomes, Veterans Day
Posted in Historical Support, Making Connections, Memorials | Comments Off on Veterans’ Day – 2012

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
Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Making Connections | Comments Off on Petraeus over Breakfast

Vote Today – My Opinion, et tu?

Tuesday, November 6th, 2012

By: Marceline Donaldson, 2012

Hope everyone gets out to vote. I still can’t believe the race is so close. When you think of people supporting and giving money to elect an Archbishop of the Mormon Church for president of these United States is unbelievable in a country which believes in and has a constitutional amendment against bringing together Church and State and there is no question Mitt Romney will not and has not separated Church and State. He is one of the two to three top people in his Church – the equivalent of an Archbishop in the Catholic Church – he has not resigned nor has he said he would resign if elected president and we have never asked the question.

The theology of the Mormon Church, to which he has pledged to be totally committed and to believe everything it teaches clearly does not believe and does not allow its members to see women and African Americans as equal. What’s wrong with all of you folks!Romney is not a member of the Church – in the pew – maybe taking in everything the Church teaches and maybe not – do all of you understand he is and has been a pastor in the Church – a Stake President (which means he is over several Mormon Churches) and to be in the position he is and has been in for over 10 years is one in which he must pledge that he believes everything the Church teaches and will work to bring in and proselytize the world bringing them around to becoming members of the Mormon Church because if he doesn’t these folks out there – these non-Mormons will be damned for an eternity. Romney believes that! That is what he thinks of you and me. And you are putting up your money, time and effort to help elect him President?

I can’t see Americans voting for the equivalent of an Archbishop of any religion – Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, etc. Take a look at what happened in Massachusetts. The large number of people converting after Romney became Governor and the huge growth in Mormon Community Centers in Massachusetts coming directly from Romneys time as Governor. He wasn’t standing back and keeping his religion to himself before during and after his time as governor, he was proselytizing and Americans are now backing him for president. I heard Ray Flynn – a big time Democrat go on television in an ad to back Romney. That was scary.

Does the Catholic Church really think they can partner with the Mormons to bring about their beliefs and then what? Watch their members convert? Or will they hear themselves be talked about as among the damned and the lost? Get real folks.

A man who goes to Church – and when he enters his Mormon Church takes off his street clothes and puts on the white robes that Mormons put on in their churches to set themselves apart from the rest of the dirty bedraggled sinful world is running for President of these United States.

I’ve talked to too many Mormons who were told what to do and who knew they had to do it and there was no room for ‘back talk’. Do you really think with that way of dealing that Mormons have not been told to vote for Romney? I’ve talked to several people who were told how to vote. If I found them – without looking for any such person – why hasn’t the media done an investigation into that kind of vote tampering?

Other kind of voter tampering? Where else would you find one person running for office and his son owning and controlling the voting machines used to count the votes for his father and his fathers’ adveersary in the race?

I’ve talked to too many African Americans who were disinvited from some Mormon Community Centers and asked to go to others. They were told they were not being asked out of the Church, but they would be more ‘comfortable’ in a Church with others like them rather than the White Church they were attending.

I look at Romney and hear the lies he has been telling. Even the media and others have had to call him out on lying – and we are looking at a close vote? It is unbelievable! However, we get who we deserve.

Looking at Massachusetts, Romney was governor of Massachusetts and he is further behind in Massachusetts than in any other state. What does that say about his governorship? He got out of it what he wanted – lots of converts in Massachusetts to Mormonism.

Who has he run against while in politics? A woman and an African American. That says a lot about a man who clearly shows he thinks very little of women and minorities. These are the people he sees as not having a chance against a White Male, so he has taken them on. Would he have run for Governor of Massachusetts or President of the United States if his opponents were other than a woman or African American?

He is in a religions – to which he is devoted – which has been very clear that they think women are inferior and it is against their theology for women to come close to equality and African Americans were not allowed into the Mormon Church until the civil rights movement showed its strength. The Mormon Church claimed African Americans carried the mark of Cain and therefore were unredeemable and not proper people to join their Mormon Church.

I remember Mormon women coming forward in the 1970’s when the women’s movement was very strong and very vocal and when they did join the Women’s Movement they were excommunicated from their Mormon Church. And we are today looking at the possibility of a Mormon Bishop for President of the United States? Absurdities abound here. Is this who you Tea Party folks are going to make a deal with to keep your race pure? And White? Now that’s funny!

I could go on for pages, but that wouldn’t produce anything. I just can’t understand why this campaign is so close given the facts of who Romney is – given the horrible state of the United States at the end of the Bush administration – listening to Romney talk about and drop the blame for the slowed economy on Obama and expecting people to believe him. Is our memory so short? Do we not remember when this country almost tanked? Do we not remember when Obama was inaugurated President of these United States the economy and the country was in far worse shape than any of us thought possible and he had to bring us all back from the edge of that cliff?

Romney talks about his ‘experience’ and how he can turn this country around quickly because he is so good at doing such. But I also remember Romney saying he didn’t do any of that – he was simply an investor in the businesses to which he attached his name. What is it – the one or the other? It is the one most expedient to argue at the moment.

I understand how Germany could have been taken in by Hitler in his early days. Human beings are very gullible. We somehow don’t see the monster standing in front of us until he has ripped us to pieces. And then we don’t understand what happened.

This was written by a lifelong, but today disaffected, disappointed, disbelieving Republican. I was a Republican when Strom Thurmond was a Democrat. Wow how life changes! Do you think Abraham Lincoln would be able to vote for Mitt Romney? I don’t think so.

Marceline Donaldson

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Tags: Barack Obama, bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Making Connections, Mitt Romney, politics
Posted in An editorial just because, Making Connections | Comments Off on Vote Today – My Opinion, et tu?

Dr. Alice Amsden’s Commemoration at MIT

Saturday, November 3rd, 2012

Dr. Alice Amsden, Barton L. Weller Professor of Economic Development, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Over the weekend of October 20, 2012 MIT held a commemoration/memorial for Dr. Amsden and it was recorded and published. One of the Bettina Network Community members called to ask that we post the email on Bettina Network’s Blog that we sent to those who purchased at Dr. Amsden’s Scattering Sale. She had forwarded the link to a couple friends and they said the content of the weekend should have a wider ciculation and encouraged her to have the commemoration put on the blog.

In that spirit, the link follows and we invite you to take a look. It was a tremendous couple of days and an opportunity to both pay tribute to Dr. Amsden and to learn about her ideas, work and family. We came away with a much greater understanding of what she was about and a different set of ideas about how the world could work.

We sent the following message to those who purchased items at this sale and decided to share it with the Bettina Network’s world.

http://amsden.mit.edu/program/

http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/21431-alice-amsden-commemoration-part-1

“A couple months ago you purchased items at a Bettina Network Scattering Sale which were from the estate of Alice Amsden.

There was a memorial service for Ms. Amsden at MIT recently, which is now on-line. We have included, at the top of this email, the link for you to use to see this service. It is a fantastic tribute to Dr. Amsden and it gives you an idea as to who she was, her work, ideas, colleagues and more.

Some of us keep as much of a provenance of the items we buy as possible. We assume you are one of us and would like to have this information that you can peruse as you wish. There are six parts to the video and it is excellent.

Thank you for being a part of the Bettina Network Community and for the purchases you made at the Alice Amsden Sale. We hope this video becomes a part of your collection and you keep it with the items you purchased from Dr. Amsdens estate.

At Bettina Network we are working on building a research library which would include such information on all the items we sell so the next generation will be able to search for and find the art, furnishings, everyday items and more of those who meant a lot to them. I still wonder what happened to some particular items from my grandmother’s estate. I would very much have appreciated being able to search for those items, so we are working to give others that opportunity.

We also hope the research library will be used by researchers, appraisers, historians and others to gain an idea into who owned what, why, its value when it was sold and its history before it was acquired by that particular person.

We hope this video is as meaningful to you as it was to us. Besides the ideas and discussion in this Commemoration, the video about Alice Amsden from baby to the end of life was beautifully done as was the tribute to Dr. Amsden by her family.

We commend it to you with our best wishes and thanks!”

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Tags: Alice Amsden, bed & breakfast, Bettina Sales, Bettina Scattering Sale, Economics, Estate Sales, Making Connections, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Scattering Sale, Urban Policy
Posted in A Scattering Sale, Bettina Network Info, Estate Sale Analysis and Info, Making Connections, Memorials, Preserving Family History and Stories | Comments Off on Dr. Alice Amsden’s Commemoration at MIT

Ultra-Pasteurized = Ultra-Junk-Milk

Friday, November 2nd, 2012

Today is very discouraging. I spent yesterday looking for organic milk and am discovering the good milk is being replaced all over the city by the ‘ultra-pasteurized’. It is as though stores are saying ‘we will carry organic milk, but we don’t think it will sell so we will stock the ‘ultra’ kind and therefore it will last for years on the shelf waiting for buyers.’

It is amazing to me that any store would carry ultra-pasteurized. People who are into the organic movement, or are concerned about their health and want to maximize the nutrients they take in are those who know a lot about food. Very few of us will buy anything off the shelf without first reading its ingredients. And many of us subscribe to that new adage, if you can’t pronounce one or more of the ingredients leave it on that shelf.

So why would anyone replace organic milk with organic ultra-pasteurized? That is a contradiction in terms. I would never spend my very hard earned money on such a product and neither would anyone I know.

So – take that stuff off the shelf. Complain about it wherever you see it and demand that store owners/managers/buyers get real and start producing quality organic products for the money they charge.

I will pay – but not for junk-milk or junk anything else, organic or otherwise. Hope you are with me and let it be known that you will not tolerate being asked to buy junk-food. Hmmmmm! That ultra-pasteurized milk would go well with hamburgers made of pink slime, —-on buns made with white flour left in silos and then sprayed with pesticides to kill the bugs and then sold without either removing the pesticides or the bugs (they decay – every notice the little black/brown specs in your white flour?) and without noting the pesticides on the list of ingredients in the flour, ——–french fries soaked in beef stock and sold as a vegetarian product ——and etc. etc. etc.

We are putting “ULTRA PASTEURIZED MILK’ in Bettina’s Box of Shame.

Get out there – be vigilant – protect our food supply.

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Tags: bed & breakfast, Bed and Breakfast in Cambridge MA
Posted in Bettina's Box of Shame, Food Shopping, Health, Making Connections | Comments Off on Ultra-Pasteurized = Ultra-Junk-Milk

Cleaning Wood Furniture

Wednesday, October 31st, 2012

I read and followed your blog on Cleaning Wood furniture from February, 2010. If you want to refresh your memory the address is https://www.bettina-network.com/blog/?m=201002 or check on the left side of this page and click on February 2010. I would like to make a suggestion for change. We started using your method and got great results. Recently, we talked to friends of ours who suggested we substitute Walnut Oil for the Olive Oil or add half and half – half Olive Oil to half Walnut Oil and then add the lemongrass oil.

We tried this with a soft cloth on a piece of wood furniture and it worked really great. We also tried plain Walnut Oil instead of Olive Oil and that worked just as well.

Because I like Walnut Oil better than Olive Oil I think I will continue to use the Walnut Oil for cleaning and polishing wood furniture. My friend cautioned me against using Walnut Oil because she said it ‘stinks.” Nothing could stink as badly as the petroleum derivative oils that most use on their wood furniture. It is amazing what we humans can become accustomed to as normal and refuse to change or find the change inferior.

I tried using lemon juice and that was phenomenal, but I don’t always feel up to squezing a lemon and mixing it with the oils. Using just a few drops of essential lemongrass oil was simpler. The essential oil was one addition that I thought was super.

Thanks for your blog. It causes me to experiment and I have found several new possibilities which are healthier than what I was doing. This Walnut Oil – Olive Oil – Essential Lemongrass Oil is one of the best I’ve found. Its quick, easy, much cheaper than the commercial preparations – which I believe are harmful to your health and certainly ruin your hands. What makes me angry is that I have to pay much money to have my hands and health ruined while they spend my money on marketing to get me to buy an inferior product. This made my hands soft and beautiful as a result of oiling my furniture – who knew! It might even mitigate my getting a manicure so often!

If your readers have a hard time finding essential lemongrass oil they might try Frontier Co-op. Aura Cacia, whose products are offered through Frontier, sells essential lemongrass oil. Instead of the .5 bottles, you might contact them for 4 ounces, which makes more sense with this use for the essential oil. I love essential oil of lavendar and maybe one day I will try that when I oil my wood furniture, but for today I will stick with essential lemongrass oil.

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Tags: bed & breakfast, health, house cleaning, Making Connections
Posted in Health, Health and Beauty, Housekeeping, Making Connections, Reader Feedback | Comments Off on Cleaning Wood Furniture

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!

Lifted from Vogue Magazine

Sunday, September 9th, 2012

We hope Vogue Magazine doesn’t object, but the end of an article in the August 2012 magazine about Bel(le) Kaufman was too good not to share with you. It puts so succinctly what its like to grow oldl The entire article is worth reading, but the ending is really special. It follows:

“I’ve lived a long time, a very long time, 101 years and I’m, still here. I’ve done with the doubts and struggles and insecurities of youth. I’m finished with loss and guilt and regret. I’m very old, and nothing is expected of me. Now, provided good health continues, I can do what I want. I can write my memoirs. I can edit my works for future eBooks. I can even do nothing – what a luxury that is! I have new priorities and a new appreciation of time. I enjoy my family more than ever, and also a sunny day and a comfortable bed. I keep up my interest in books and theater and people, and when I’m tired, I rest. My former students write to me and visit me. i had many problems and disasters in my life, fortunately at my age, I don’t remember what they were. I’m glad I am 101.”

I think everyone over 70 years could write a variation of that paragraph. The older you are the freer you become – and that crosses race, sex, finances, education, and all the other things which separate, motivate and define us as younger people. All of that drops away and we move closer to the diverse universe promised and worked for, but not achieved, when we were young. Humanity becomes more humane as year adds to year.

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Tags: bed & breakfast, Belle Kaufman, growing old, Lifestyle Choices, Making Connections, Vogue Magazine
Posted in Growing Old, Making Connections | Comments Off on Lifted from Vogue Magazine

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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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.

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

Tags: bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Comfort Food, food shopping, Frontier Co-op, Making Connections, Organic Tapioca, Recipe, Tapioca Pudding
Posted in Bettina's Cookbook, Breakfast Table Talk, Food Shopping, Making Connections | Comments Off on Bettina’s Tapioca Pudding

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

An Estate Sale Buying Tip!

Tuesday, August 7th, 2012

A QUESTION FROM AN ESTATE SALE SHOPPER:

“I wanted to buy a pocket book, which I loved and it looked in very good condition, even on the inside. I was a little troubled, however, because we have been so programmed by those marketing to make us afraid of one another, that I found I had succumbed to that marketing and wondered what kind of unseen germs were on the inside of the pocketbook, which afterall had been used by someone I didn’t know. Do you have any help for me?”

OUR ANSWER:

We have been shopping estate sales for decades and have found a wonderful way to handle this! Don’t know if it will work for you because you are facing, basically, a psychological issue – which we believe, as apparently you do too – that this fear of another human being and their ‘things’ has been caused by the marketing people looking for ways to sell their products.

We put crumpled-up newspaper in the pocket book to help it either keep or to restore its shape and then we hang the pocket book wherever we want it to live. We do that even for brand new pocket books, which you also have to worry about because some of the material being used today to make and line pocket books have off gases – think of that getting all over the items you put in the bags. The older bags were lined with real silk or other organic materials, not the mixes and creations of today, which are basically some form of a petroleum derivative.

After we have crumpled the newspaper and before we put it in the pocket book we put a few drops of organic essential oil of lavender on the newspaper and then stuff it into the pocket book, taking care to make sure the shape is what we want the pocket book to take. Essential oil of Lavender is an anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory and stress reducer oil.

Once you’ve done that – when you use the bag, the smell of the oil of lavender remains, so when you are having a frantic moment just stop, open your pocket book, pretend to look around in it for something and smell the lavender. It works like a charm for us and we become calmer and less stressed in just a few moments. Then, when you can’t find what you were looking for because you really weren’t looking for anything, and you feel a lot calmer, close your bag and continue with whatever you were doing.

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

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

Tags: bed & breakfast, clothes-keeping, estate sale shopping
Posted in Estate Sale Analysis and Info, Housekeeping, Making Connections, Shopping | Comments Off on An Estate Sale Buying Tip!

Chick-fill-A – couldn’t resist commenting!

Tuesday, July 31st, 2012

It is interesting that even bed & breakfast is getting involved in this conversation where Chick-fil-A takes a stand against marriage equality.

A Bed & Breakfast in Edgewater Park, N. J., has a sign posted outside indicating the Inn’s support of a planned, nationwide “Chick-fill-A” day by anti-marriage equality patrons, followed by the message, “Marriage, One Man, One Woman, One God.”

Wonder if any of you have thought about how this corporation puts the campaigners squarely in the anti-feminist camp? Bring back the woman as sex object and let us degrade her with signs, comments, corporations which take sexist titles as their name – remember Hooters? Where are they now – a traditional company having survived their slam against women?

Advertise your company and your sexist, anti-female, anti-equality sentiments at the same time! “Chick-fil-A” can mean many things and in this society it generally does not mean Chicken. Chick is a derogatory diminutive for women as sex objects in a very negative sense. They don’t have to say anything about gay marriage – their bias is right out front in their name, why would anyone expect anything any different from a corporation which takes such a name, advertises it and expects to be taken seriously!

They have already made a statement as to where they stand by their corporate name – it spells blatant, in your face SEXISM – it has staked out its territory and is marketing to the group it has defined as its potential customers. Right there in the camp which is dedicated to keeping us all unequal, inferior and feuding with each other over civil rights. They are doing everything possible to turn a woman into a thing (not too thinly veiled, of course) – an object for a man’s use and then discarded because it/she has an expiration date – generally after 28 years of age.

And after “Chick” comes the diminutive of filly – another name which reduces a woman to her sex object status. “What a fine filly” – ever hear that applied to women – oops, excuse me – applied to girls?

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Tags: bed & breakfast
Posted in An editorial just because, Guest comments, Making Connections | Comments Off on Chick-fill-A – couldn’t resist commenting!

Ginger/Maple Syrup/Popcorn

Friday, July 27th, 2012

We discovered a great way to make popcorn – almost by accident. And isn’t that the way all great things happen? Does that mean all of us – human beings – are accidental creations?

Organic ginger is what started us on the road to this fantastic snack. Healthy, quick to make and great tasting.

Start with a pound or two of organic ginger.

Wash the ginger in cold running water with a vegetable brush

because you don’t want to take the skin off the ginger. Many of the nutrients you want for your body are in the skin.

Somewhere in this blog – try clicking on “Health” or “Bettina Cookbook” – is a recipe for Ginger Tea. Follow that recipe or what follows from my memory.

Put the organic ginger in a large pot and fill the pot with water

Add a bit of Organic Turbinado Sugar to your taste

Put a cover on the pot and let it boil, then simmer for a couple hours.

At the end of this process pour the hot water – now Ginger Tea – into the glass containers you use to store tea in the refrigerator.

If you don’t have such glass pitchers, containers, whatever – now is a good time to get some so you can constantly keep one kind or another of your homemade tea in your refrigerator to use whenever you want a little break with a great drink. That is as close to ‘fast food’ as we come – pre-make it for the future to be able to just open the refrigerator and eat or drink.

Now you have Southern Sweet Tea and you can serve it to friends, relatives, – those you want to have good health going forward. This tea is fantastic. It stimulates the body; cools you down in summer; helps your digestion – at least that is what it does for me.

If you don’t like “Sweet Tea”, then just boil the organic ginger root by itself without adding the Organic Turbinado Sugar.

Once you have poured out and saved the water in which you boiled the organic ginger root you are ready to begin the process of making the popcorn.

Take the ginger root left in the pot.

Add one cup organic turbinado sugar, two cups water, one cup maple syrup and let that simmer covered on the stove until you get a heavy syrup (somewhere over 240 degrees on a candy thermometer)

Once you get syrup of the right consistency – pour the mixture onto a cooling plate or into a medium-sized Corning pot

If you want to make the ginger root into candied ginger, take the ginger root out of the syrup – roll it in organic turbinado sugar and put it aside.

Now comes the fun:

With your AIR POPCORN POPPER –

no, not the same one you use to roast coffee in the mornings, unless you want to add a coffee taste to your popcorn (which might not be so bad)

Pour the amount of unpopped corn you want to use into the measuring cup, which comes with the Air Popcorn Popper

plug in the Popcorn Popper

and let the smells permeate the house and your nostrils so you are ready for goodies to come.

Don’t forget to put a large bowl next to the Popcorn Popper to catch the corn as it comes out beautifully popped, hot with gorgeous smells!

While the corn is popping, melt 1/2 cup organic butter

(what do you expect, I am from New Orleans with French ancestors. Two facts which put butter into my DNA)

Mix the ginger syrup with the butter and let it simmer until the two are nicely mixed.

Carefully and very slowly drizzle this mixture over the popped corn

stopping intermittently to mix the popped corn and the syrup together.

Be very gentle with the freshly popped corn. You need to watch to make sure you don’t pour the hot syrup too fast or mix the two together too vigorously because you could turn your popped corn into a sludgy mess.

Don’t use too much syrup – just a light drizzle because

– less is more in this case. If you like thickly coated popped corn because you were raised on that heavily coated caramel corn then have a ball and use as much syrup as you want to create that affect. I was raised on that heavily coated caramel corn and stopped eating it when I became an adult.

This popped corn brings back those memories – gives a fantastic adult taste – and is especially good when you use the syrup lightly and sparingly.

If you want to go a step further and cut the now candied, ginger into really tiny pieces you can mix those tiny pieces into your Ginger/Maple Syrup/Popcorn for an additional unidentifiable, except to the most sophisticated palates, taste. Makes a nice substitute for those candied peanuts that sometimes still appears on the grocery store shelves. Nice, the ginger is quite lovely and brings this snack to new heights!

enjoy!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tags: bed & breakfast, Ginger Root, Maple Syrp, New Orleans, New Orleans Creole, Popcornn, Recipe
Posted in Bettina's Cookbook, Making Connections | Comments Off on Ginger/Maple Syrup/Popcorn

Archive for the ‘Making Connections’ Category

A Guest Responds to Rice and Kerry

A Larry Hagman breakfast!

Happy Thanksgiving!

A quote in Samuel T. Lloyd’s Thanksgiving message in the Trinity Church newsletter.

Secretary of State???

Veterans’ Day – 2012

Petraeus over Breakfast

Vote Today – My Opinion, et tu?

Dr. Alice Amsden’s Commemoration at MIT

Ultra-Pasteurized = Ultra-Junk-Milk

Cleaning Wood Furniture

Thanks for your Presidential Post!

Politics at Breakfast? I’m Shocked

A Fantastic Diet for Good Health!

Lifted from Vogue Magazine

Upholstering Walls – 1st Installment!

Bettina’s Tapioca Pudding

In Memory of Roger Fisher

An Estate Sale Buying Tip!

Chick-fill-A – couldn’t resist commenting!

Ginger/Maple Syrup/Popcorn

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