December, 2009 - Bettina Network's Blog

Archive for December, 2009

Update on 2009 Stock Tips at Breakfast!

Thursday, December 31st, 2009

2009 copyright the Bettina Network, inc.

We received notes from guests about buying stock mentioned over breakfast when they stayed at a Bettina home.  Three stocks were mentioned and we have the dates the guests purchased the stock.  To keep it honest, lets take an end of the year note on what happened.

On 6/15/2009 a guest wrote about the conversation about IVAN, then selling at $1.56/share and IVN, then selling at $6.12/share.  You might check out those posts for more information.  This is only to bring those conversations up to date.
Today IVAN is selling for $2.86/share – the energy stock
IVN is selling for $14.63/share – the gold mining stock

On 7/21/2009 another guest wrote about a conversation around a Bettina breakfast table about SIRI.  On that date SIRI was selling for $ .425/share.
Today SIRI is selling for $.5895/share – the Sirius XM Radio stock

We will keep you up to date on other stock conversations and hope the people who emailed us about their purchase of these stocks will also email us when they sell.

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

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

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

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

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

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

 

Changes in Bettina Homes

Thursday, December 31st, 2009

copyright 2009 The Bettina Network, inc.

In 2010 you will find wonderful changes in Bettina homes for your added comfort and need for ever more elegant surroundings.  The major change is around technology.  All Bettina homes have broadband internet access – the kind which has a very fast response time, doesn’t need a telephone dial-up and is accessible to you in your room at no extra charge.  That broadband includes wireless internet access in all homes.  In some homes,  you have immediate access to the wireless by simply turning on your computer; in others, where your host family is super-security conscious, your computer IP number is entered into the security system and you then have immediate access to the internet.  Eventually,  that kind of secure access will be common across the Bettina Network.

The change about which we are most proud is now YOU HAVE ACCESS TO A COMPUTER, at no extra charge,  as well as internet wired and wireless when you stay in a Bettina home.  You may request a computer when you make reservations and you will find one in your room when you arrive.

Some are computers without lots of bells and whistles; others are totally equipped with what you wish you had at home.  On the plain vanilla computers, you will have to sign into your home/office computer and use your programs remotely.  You will be able to access your email on the computer in your room.  In other homes, the computers are complete with every little thing available.  The difference is the level of technical competence of the host family.  As those host families become more comfortable and knowledgeable about their increased technology offerings, those computers will be upgraded and other things will be added. Although, some host families, who are technologically challenged, have so many technical people staying as guests, they tend to have better equipped computers because of their guests contributions to their knowledge and they have added other little gadgets like iPod docking stations.

We are constantly working to keep our position ahead of the pack.  Its no fun doing business when you are running with or slightly behind everyone else. It is not about offering cheap service at a cheap price,  that has never been what the Bettina Network is about.  – It is about offering quality, convenience, luxury, an elegant and very green lifestyle as economically as we can possibly offer it, with both our guests and our host families surviving and thriving nicely.

We had some interesting side developments in 2009.  One couple – who met in a famous Bettina home in Harvard Square Cambridge – are now engaged and planning a wedding in June:  one Bettina host family is helping them plan the wedding; and they are going to be married by another Bettina host family member, but unfortunately not in a Bettina home, in their family home – which we would love to add to the Bettina Network.  A family, who stayed in Bettina homes for many years, lost a loved one and a Bettina host family member, who had been involved in the last months of life with the family, was at the funeral and officiated.  Another Bettina host family member, who is a photographer/videographer produced a beautiful documentary, which is available in Bettina homes if you would like to see it and/or buy it.

Several guests registered their talent with the Bettina Network and we were able to find work for them -painting, sculpting, photographing, musicians, etc.  Concerts are now being held in a couple homes where the families are professional musicians.  Its great for the family member because they have an audience on which they can try a new program, before they present it in a public concert, and great for the guests who see and hear musicians perform, up close, able to ask questions, talk about what they’ve heard and enjoy an hour of beautiful music.

We are very happy about the direction in which we are moving and hope you will let us know how we can improve to better suit your needs in 2010!

One disappointment was to see our motto – “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” – being prominently used by an Inn in Cambridge in their advertisements.  We keep hearing that imitation is the highest form of flattery, so we will take it as such and know that we must be succeeding in what we do or we wouldn’t be imitated.  We know our guests are discerning and know the difference between follow-the-leader and the real thing.

Happy New Year!  May you think of us first and foremost during 2010 and beyond!

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

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

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

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

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

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

 

Our Holiday Greeting to Everyone

Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009

This is the time of year when you realize you know your friends, but you don’t know which holiday they celebrate.  So our best wishes to everyone, everyplace, whatever you call your end of the year celebration.

– We rejoice in being in a business which allows us to share a small part of so many people’s lives and to be immersed in such a wonderfully diverse community. You have allowed us into your world in ways we never could have dreamed of before we became a part of this Bettina Network.  We hope it continues into the next year and into the next generation!

Thank you for having given us so much.  Money tips are not allowed in the Bettina Network – from anyone – because our “tips” come from so many greater gifts from our guests as we share their lives no matter how briefly.

We have a favorite poem we pull out at this time of year, written by The Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman who was the Dean of Boston University’s Marsh Chapel from 1953-1962.  He was an exceptional person and his writings are what some of us turn to when we feel as though we are straying from the path we are called to walk.  It is said that Martin Luther King, Jr. kept two books next to his bedside wherever he travelled – one was the Bible, the other was Howard Thurman’s book “Jesus and the Disinherited.”

It makes quite a statement about Boston University to know that in the 1950’s, when it wasn’t popular, the Dean of Marsh Chapel was an African-American.  That was a time when, if Howard Thurman went to conferences, or travelled about the country on Boston University’s business, he would not be able to stay in the hotel in which the conference was held because hotels, in that fairly recent time frame,  refused to accept African-American guests.  Howard Thurman would have to enter the hotel through the back door or staff entrance to attend the conference because African-Americans were not allowed to enter hotels through their front doors.  When he travelled on other business he stayed with friends, Boston University Alumnus or bed & breakfasts.  In spite of these deterrents,  Boston University selected Howard Thurman for what was one of its most prestigious appointments.

Our holiday gift to you is this poem by Howard Thurman.  Many of us had to memorize this poem in grammar school and it has stayed in our hearts.  We hope you will pass it along to your children!!

“When the song of the angels is stilled,
 When the star in the sky is gone,
 When the kings and the princes are home,
 When the shepherds are back with their flock,
 Then the work of Christmas begins.


            To find the lost,
            To heal the broken,
            To feed the hungry,
            To release the prisoner,
            To rebuild the nations,
            To bring peace among brothers (and sisters),
            To make music in the heart.”

MAY THE JOY, PEACE AND PROMISE OF THIS SEASON PERVADE YOUR LIFE AS LONG AS IT LASTS AND AT THE END, TAKE YOU INTO THAT PROMISED LAND GLORIOUSLY!!!!!

From all of us at the Bettina Network!

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

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

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

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

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

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

 

A Bettina Coconut Cake

Saturday, December 19th, 2009

copyright 2009 The Bettina Network, inc.

Cakes can be easy to make – or – judging from some recipe’s I’ve read, they can be extraordainarily difficult.

I was raised with a simple 1-2-3-4 cake.  It can be varied with different ingredients and it doesn’t take a genius to remember the recipe without pouring, once again, over many cookbooks.  This is the basis for the coconut cake.

1 – One cup of organic butter (equivalent to two sticks)

Put butter in your stand mixer and let it whirl for a few minutes

2.  Two cups organic turbinado sugar

Add the sugar to the butter, pouring it slowly while your mixer is on – almost, but not quite to the highest setting.  Don’t let the butter mix too far ahead of adding the sugar because you can get the whipped cream look to your mixture if you add the sugar just a minute or two after you start whipping the butter.

3.  In a bowl measure three cups organic STONE-GROUND whole wheat pastry flour

To this you want to add one teaspoon baking powder and a pinch of salt.  Mix this with a spoon or wire whisk until you’ve put lots of air into the flour.

4. Four organic eggs

Add the eggs to the sugar and butter mixture one at a time, mixing until they are fully incorporated, but don’t mix this too long. The sugar and butter can be whipped forever and the cake gets better the longer they mix.  Once you start adding eggs, don’t beat the cake too much.

After the eggs are incorporated, alternate adding the flour mixture and the liquid to the sugar-egg-butter mix.  In this case, for the coconut cake, the liquid is  either one can or 1/2 can of organic coconut milk.  If you are good at making your own coconut milk, go ahead, it makes for a better cake, but the canned organic variety is my speed at this point in time……..for two reasons a) I don’t know how to make coconut milk and b) I can never find organic coconuts to experiment.

If you would like a creamier cake, add the whole can of organic coconut milk.  I find 1/2 can is more to my taste – it produces a drier cake, but not too dry.

Put the cake in either two* or four* cake pans which have been well buttered and bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes.  That is an estimate of time because each stove will bake in a different time frame. When the cake looks done, springs back when you touch the top and a straw or knife put in the center comes out clean, then you know the cake is done.

*If you like lots of icing on your cake you might consider making four layers.  If you like a less sweet cake then you want to choose to make only two layers.

One goodness of a cake made with all organic ingredients is that it tends to be less sweet than a cake made with white granulated sugar.

Take the cake out of the oven and let it cool.

The long part is the icing:

Break 4 eggs and separate them – the egg whites are what you want to use for this icing.  The only reason is because the icing on a coconut cake should be white and to use the entire egg would produce a more ivory/brownish looking cake.  It has a better taste, but the romance around a coconut cake is shattered.  (What to do with the egg yolks for all of us who think frugally – use them to make Bettina’s Chocolate Pudding.)

Set the egg whites aside.  Put one cup organic turbinado sugar in a glass corning pot.  Add one cup of water.  Just pour in the water, don’t stir, don’t touch anything in the pot once you pour in the water and pour slowly so the water doesn’t splash around the pot as you add it.

Turn on the flame and let the water and sugar cook until the mixture becomes a simple syrup – which means until the mixture reaches 240 degrees on a candy thermometer.

When the mixture reaches 240 degrees, put the egg whites in your stand mixer and whip them until they begin to have soft peaks.  When you reach that stage with the egg whites, gradually and slowly pour in the hot syrup.  Be very careful with the syrup because it is really, really hot and can burn you severely if not handled properly.

You can add coconut syrup, vanilla syrup or any other kind of flavoring you would like at this point.  Pour the hot syrup into the egg whites VERY VERY gradually and let this whip for a very generous length of time.

At this point you can do one of two things:

1.  Once the egg whites have become substantial and hold their peaks looking white, fluffy and beautiful, take a small portion aside in a bowl and add your favorite preserves (ginger preserves make an unusual and very delicious touch),  lightly mixing by hand.  Use this mixture for the filling in your cake.  OR – you can add lots of shredded coconut to this mixture – stirring by hand –  and use that for the filling with the rest used to slather very thickly on the top and sides of the cake.  And voila – you have your coconut cake.

2.  If you prefer a more butter-cream icing, you can start adding pats of butter to the mixture as it whips and let it continue to whip until it has a very whipped creamy/butter-creamy look.  This is delicious. Of course, it will take all of the butter in the house, plus some you will get from a quick trip to the store, –while your icing is mixing,  — as you realize you don’t have enough butter in the house for this icing to come through properly, — but it will be worth the hassle.

Use this as you would the other icing – stir lots of shredded coconut into this icing; put a generous amount of icing on each cake layer;  put the layers together and slather the rest on the top and sides of the cake.

Because these icings hold peaks nicely, you can really get imaginative in making the cake look spectacular.

Sometimes when adding butter to the whipped syrup and egg white mixture,  your icing can break and when you look at it in the mixer you think you have a loser, but do not fear, just let the mixture keep on going – maybe as long as 15-20 minutes or longer and your icing will come through beautifully for you.

You can put this buttery icing on the cake, or you can sit in a corner with the bowl, making sure no one sees you, and eat until your heart is content.  It roughly reminds you of a wedding cake.  Whatever is left from this little act of gluttony can still be the icing on your coconut cake.

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

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

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

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

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

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

 

Ramblings on Tiger Woods

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

copyright the Bettina Network, inc.
Marceline Donaldson

I was going to keep quiet on this one, but who can resist a request to write something.  I can feel my daughters cringe as I speak out!  I am sure one of the things they are grateful for is a last name different from mine.  Nevertheless –

The first thing that strikes me is the media outcry about Tiger Woods who they claim pretended to be so “clean” and with such a “perfect image”.  It is an amazing outcry.  Tiger Woods didn’t claim to be anything.  He kept a private life private. His golf life was in the public eye, the rest of his life was totally private.  It is only very recently that we’ve seen Tiger Woods in pictures with his wife.

I see this whole tabloid event as being extremely racist and sexist.  It is difficult to do anything in this society which doesn’t have such overtones, but this tops it.

First of all, it is quite possible and most probable that the core of the problem is simply that Tiger Woods and his wife were in a marriage that wasn’t working and he found an outlet – or outlets, if you are to believe the tabloids with all the women coming forth claiming to be Tiger’s mistresses. One was 49 years old. No one has even hinted at how Elin Woods handled this bad marriage.  No one is even claiming it was a bad marriage, even though what is out there for all to see says clearly that the marriage wasn’t working. And from the alleged incident with the golf clubs, was it an abusive marriage.

Outside of everything else, this Tiger Woods mess has sent out a very clear call for a total clean-out of our media.  It is time for this country to demand that its media have standards other than greed – looking for twists on stories to bring in the most money for their particular media outlets.  The human cost has been enormous; our inability to get at the facts of any situation is clear because facts aren’t what the media is about.  The media has very successfully developed a cynical viewership and readership.  Today, most of us don’t believe anything we see or hear.  Good investigative journalism is a thing of the past, if it ever existed, except in a few exceptional corners.

Tiger Woods has simply replaced Michael Jackson for the media!  I remember when the Michael Jackson mess exploded onto the screen and in the written media.  To say he was lynched by the media is an understatement.  Once Michael Jackson died, predictably it was time to move on to take down another outsized African American male – and who fit that bill better than Tiger Woods.  Especially since Tiger Woods was married to a Caucasian woman.

It is first very striking in the different way the media treats our -ism groups.  Tiger Woods – African American male; Elin Woods – White ‘European’ female; David Letterman – White male in the right upper class group with the correct figures behind him; Hugh Hefner – White male “exotica” figure, not in the right group, but making money for the right people and throwing parties they all want to attend,  etc.

David Letterman is clearly the most harmful of the group.  He also is the one who got a free pass for his admitted past sexual abuse of women and given that, a free pass to continue.

We didn’t see women coming out to make accusations or to link their name to Lettermans as one of his ‘conquests’.  Very different from the way the Tiger Woods mess was handled.  Why is that?  Especially since the negative results for women and consequentially for our society are far greater in the David Letterman situation than in the Tiger Woods debacle. What was the difference in the women? – their career choices!!!  One group chose a career in which they  had to break glass ceilings. One group chose a career which totally fulfilled one of the negative stereotypes of women.  For women to come out to claim that David Letterman took advantage of them sexually on the job and put them in the position of either sex in a corner office or no job, no promotion, no ability to continue to work in their chosen profession – those women would have had to be ready to see their career disappear and daily survival become their biggest issue.  Not many are able to take that kind of stand and the stress that follows.  Unlike in the Tiger Woods mess where the pressure was on women to “out” Woods,  the pressure wasn’t on women to ‘out’ Letterman, but for them to cover-up for Letterman.  For them to shut-up or lose job and career.

We didn’t see celebrities making public statements condemning Letterman for this kind of gross discrimination against women – which is actually, the core of how this society institutionally and structurally discriminates against women.  We also didn’t see those same celebrities refusing to appear on his show because of what they now know happened ‘back stage.’  They came out in force, smiling, showing their continued friendship with Letterman and by their presence on his show making a statement about their acquiescence to and agreement with the way Letterman treated the women who worked with him professionally.

Our biggest celebrities ignored a horrible situation and continued and continue to appear on his show, glad-handing him and by doing so support this alleged sexual abuse of the women who work for him.  The media has been very conspiratorially silent.  So – David Letterman continues with no negative results to his career or professional future.

Tiger Woods is an African American man married to a White Woman – and a Swede at that – a blond, very white woman.  If you are not into denial about racism and sexism in this society, then you knew something was going to explode and that explosion would be to get rid of Tiger Woods or at least tar him with as ugly a brush as possible.  With Woods wrapped in the kind of scandal that has now surfaced.  The only thing better for those who contribute to this kind of mess would have been for him to have been found sleeping with young boys instead of grown, adult women.

It is striking the different way the tabloids handled the Rihanna situation and the way they handled the Elin situation.  It was horrific what happened to Rihanna and we all very properly admitted that and were appalled at the violent temper of her attacker. Her attacker was properly brought to justice and faced criminal charges.  There was also much talk in the media for him to be in an Anger Management program.

In contrast, there was loud cheering that went up when Elin Woods allegedly went after Tiger Woods with a golf club and allegedly did substantial damage to Tiger and his or their property.  At least Rihanna’s attacker used his hands. Violence against another human being is wrong and for that there are criminal penalties.  Interestingly, the tabloid and other media were calling for criminal penalties against Tiger Woods and cheering Elin on.  She had, after all, seen the light and went after this Negro with a weapon to do what – teach him a lesson?

All of Sweden is apparently cheering-on Elin.  Some of Tiger’s golf buddies are cheering-on Elin making comments about how sorry they were that they had introduced Elin to Tiger, he wasn’t the kind of person they thought he was and one golf buddy apologized for the introduction.  What kind of introduction?  He introduced the top sports figure in the world today, with a fairly substantial formal education and intelligence, via among others Stanford University with awards for both his intelligence as well as his athleticism, to a woman who was that golfer’s children’s nanny!  He thought they were equals and was now apologizing to her for introducing her to someone who, according to that golf buddy, was clearly beneath her.  And the media simply reported the comments and couldn’t hide their glee.  This golf buddy also suggested that Elin Woods use another kind of golf club next time.  He was, with his comment, condoning Elin’s violence as her right and entitlement, suggesting that next time she use a golf club he would have chosen, that could do much more damage than the one she chose.  I suspect that same man would have had ugly things to say about Rihanna’s attacker, who, of course, was not entitled to express his anger in a life threatening kind of way.  How do the two people differ?

Rihanna’s ex-boy friend was portrayed as an out of control violent person – probably because of the way he was raised and the place he was raised – a ghetto?.  Elin Woods was portrayed as seeking a proper kind of justice to which she should be entitled and counseled on how she could deliver a more effective and damaging beating next time.  She has not been portrayed as a woman whose anger was out of control, but as having lots of guts and the physical strength to do what she allegedly did.  Several media outlets, entertainment and serious news coverage found what Elin allegedly did funny – a great joke! Out- of-control anger that could have wound up with someone dead, was deemed justified and they looked up to her for the alleged attempt!

The fact that a woman going after a man with a golf club is attempted murder, has not surfaced nor even been hinted at in anybody’s column nor on anyone’s tv show that I have seen or heard about.  Given the damage allegedly done to the car, that was clearly an act of out of control, unmanageable violence whether the person came from a middle-class Swedish neighborhood or the middle of Detroit’s Black ghetto.  Where are the commentaries on Elin Woods needing to be in an anger management program?

And then there is Hugh Hefner.  A pathetic figure if I’ve ever seen one.  I don’t think he would know how to begin a conversation with a woman “on his level” so to speak – a woman his age, his level of intelligence, financially his equal, similar levels of experience, etc.  Hefner shows men how to keep women on the level of sex objects and makes sure no one forgets that a woman is only worth her physical appearance and her ability to subvert everything she is about to one thing, sex.  His girl friends could be his great-grandchildren.  It is an ugly spectacle and we all laugh.

If Hugh Hefner were African American and his girl friends were Caucasian, how hearty would our laughter be?  Hefner has acted out a life in which men are interested in a woman for sex,  arm and eye candy and nothing else.  In Hefner’s world, when a woman reaches 25 or so it is time to discard her for a younger version.  We fought that battle with the airlines and their need to discard their Stewardesses at age 33 and we won.  That model is still around and we are lauding and rewarding Hugh Hefner for holding it up so we won’t move into some other kind of future.  He successfully beckons us to stay in that past time.  He keeps us steady until we can revisit and reverse those kind of victories for women.  In his world a woman should be a prostitute, call girl, whore, corporate wife, etc.  Nothing else is acceptable from a woman – and the media holds him up as an icon.  He can do no wrong.

What is even more pathetic than Hugh Hefner are the the women coming into the confessional booth to relieve their guilt and whatever else they are claiming about their relationship with Tiger Woods.  The media is having an orgy over these women, who are unashamedly self-promoting, looking for their 15 minutes of fame to increase their financial standing in the world.  Why?  Apparently, some are coming out of this with their income up from $1,0000/hour to $3,000/hour.  A nice increase for 15 minutes of fame or a turn on one of the morning shows.

The media is holding all of this up and giving it great coverage.  The also pathetic, are the women in the media who are holding all of this up and creating a huge deal about it – Joy Behar wouldn’t have a show  if she talked about anything else,  nor would some other media have anything to write about because what they are about generally is reducing the world to sex, gossip about sex, etc.  In other words using other women and trampling over their bodies to get their own 15 minutes.

Most amazingly, the women coming out with these Tiger stories, are not being asked by journalists the first and most important question before beginning such coverage – proof?  some kind of proof? any kind of proof?   Instead, they are allowed in front of cameras and are being written about with no investigative anything. A couple have done follow-up blips on the reputation of the person “outing” Tiger and they have not come out as being among the world’s great people!

They all clearly are not in the position of the women around David Letterman.  These women around the Tiger Woods story are coming out in droves because they can gain, career wise, from doing so, which is why so many are now making these claims.  Back to shades of Michael Jackson.  Tiger Woods can’t come out to say which are true and which he’s never seen before without stirring up even more dust and without the media calling him a liar, so any woman who wants to increase her call girl price now has the opportunity to take to the cameras and put on a performance worthy of awards.  And the cameras are rolling trying to give any and everyone who wants to make such a claim their time in the sun.

I am sure as the story unfolds, Tiger Woods and Elin Woods will divorce.  They will fight over the children.  She will fight to break any pre-nup she signed in favor of a very substantial settlement using these incidents to justify such claims.  No one will breathe anything about uncontrollable anger nor the need for anger management, nor what affect this will have on the children.

In reality, her marriage to Tiger Woods has been a great career move. She doesn’t even have to baby sit her own children now she can pay others to do that for her. She can move on with at least a seven figure income and a seven figure home, neither of which she has earned.  Tiger Woods will stay out of the spotlight and when he returns, his personal life will still be as private as always and there will be someone in it with whom he thinks he has more in common and with whom he thinks he can make a more substantial marriage.

Maybe a few years to mature will help him find women who are financially, intellectually and educationally his equal and he will marry such a person.  If not, and he continues a need for immature arm and eye candy, he will most probably spend his life with these side affairs and miss what his life could have been about.  He will probably have more children. If he continues with side affairs they will be much more hidden and discreet.  He will probably have any woman he sleeps with from now on sign a confidentiality agreement with lots of financial and other penalties if she breaks the agreement.  Foreplay with Tiger will probably be a threesome – Tiger, the woman and Tiger’s attorney!

As for the rest of us, when we pick up our favorite media outlets, the names will change, but the situations will be the same.  Maybe over time the racist and sexist overtones will mitigate. We will go along in our very immature ways not wanting a substantial and decent media enough to fight for change.

And this is the world I leave to my grandchildren and great-grandcildren!  May God have mercy on them and their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren!

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

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

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Could You Comment on the Tiger Woods thing?

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

I find whenever I see such controversies these days I go to Bettina’s Blog to see what you have said.  You usually have a perspective most media writers don’t have and a thoughtful insight I find interesting and helpful.  I looked this time and didn’t find anything about the Tiger Woods business.  We would appreciate your insight and any information you have which has not appeared in the media.  Please e-mail me at the following address when you have posted a blog on Tiger Woods, but please don’t publish either my name or my e-mail address.

Thanks,
A loyal guest

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

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

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

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

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

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

 

Rev. Eddie McBride’s Sweet Potato Pie

Sunday, December 13th, 2009

copyright 2009 The Rev. Eddie McBride
used with permission by The Bettina Network, inc.

Bettina’s changes

4 medium size sweet potatoes                       organic sweet potatoes
2/3 cup brown sugar                                     organic turbinado sugar
4 Tablespoons Corn Syrup                              organic maple syrup
1 Can Condensed Milk                                   organic heavy cream
2 Eggs                                                          organic eggs
4 Tablespoons Real Butter                            organic butter
1 Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon Ground Nutmeg                       all spices organic
1/4 Teaspoon Ground Cloves
1/4 teaspoon Ground Ginger
1 teaspoon Pure Vanilla Extract                    powdered organic vanilla

1.  Cook the 4 medium-size sweet potatoes until you can drive a fork in smoothly.  Then de-skin the potatoes (while preheating the oven).

2.  Preparing crust for pies: 1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.  2) Let frozen crust thaw 10 to 20 minutes. Price bottom and around sides thoroughly with fork.  3) Bake in oven for about 9 to 11 minutes or until lightly browned.  Cool.  Then….Fill with Sweet Potato Mix.

ed.note: If you prefer to make your own pie crust it would probably be better and healthier.  We have a recipe for one using organic flour in Bettina’s Cookbook.

3.  Place Sweet Potatoes in bowl and blend with fork and electric blender, until smooth.  In large bowl, mix sweet potatoes and remaining filling ingredients with blender until blended thoroughly blended.  Pour mix into browned pie crusts.

4.  Pre-Heat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.  Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees; bake 30 additional minutes or until knife or fork inserted in center comes out clean.  However, if you are going to use the Streusel Topping, at this point, only cook for 15 Minutes before placing topping.



Streusel Topping for Sweet Potato Pie (optional…you don’t need to do this part)

Bettina’s changes

1/2 cup packed brown sugar                        organic turbinado sugar
4 Tablespoons Butter                                  organic butter
1/2 Teaspoon ground cinnamon                    organic cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped Pecans                              organic Pecans
1/2 cup chopped Walnuts                            organic Walnuts

Mix above ingredients in a bowl.  Sprinkle Streusel over top of pie and bake for 15 to 20 minutes after Streusel Topping has been placed on pie or until knife or fork inserted in center comes out clean.

Who is Eddie McBride?
He is single, likes to eat and cooks out of necessity.  He has a very respectable collection of recipes – most however, need little tweaks to keep the body healthy – as we did above.

He runs a non-profit corporation which works to help his community be its best self – primarily working with at-risk children.  It is a 501C3 organization.

You can tell from this recipe that he is from the deepest south – note the whole cup of condensed milk and the pecans, even though there are a few New England walnuts spread around, probably from his time in the Northeast.

Rev. McBride is currently working to bring MIT’s Fabrication Lab (the FAB Lab) to Mississippi, January thru March, to expose his community to this form of technology with the goal of establishing a permanent FAB Lab in his area.

An MIT graduate and Harvard Divinity School student, Rev. McBride has ministered in Massachusetts and Upstate New York.  He is now working in Mississippi.  If you are interest in being a part of bringing MIT’s FAB Lab to Mississippi, he can be reached at revedmcbride@comcast.net.

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______________________________________________________________

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

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

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

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

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

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

 


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