June, 2012 - Bettina Network's Blog

Archive for June, 2012

The Brotherhood – a response

Thursday, June 28th, 2012

“Hi guys,

Thank you for the blog entitled “The Brotherhood”.  You should be the major media – I love the way your blogs make me think and challenge what I believe.  But even more, I love the way you talk about things no one else is saying in the media.

With ‘The Brotherhood’ blog I think you didn’t go far enough.  What is missing and a pet peeve of mine is the fact that every day on every news report they end with a large coverage of sports, sports events, what sports figures are doing, and sports media.  The largest acculturizing tool in the world.  The propaganda they spread is appalling – especially at how we sit and watch and let that crap seep into our brains, our personality and our lives.

How to get everyone into things that are ‘traditional values’.  The right food, clothes, way of thinking, adversarial way to live, etc.  It is amazing that sports would be so overwhelming every place you turn.   I click off the news when the sports section starts.  Nothing else in this society gets such coverage 24/7 – how come this?  It makes sure you and your children are exposed to what this society wants us to mimic and we do follow and pattern ourselves after what the media promotes.

Why on earth would I want to mimic grown men running around and acting like little boys? Why do I want to see two sweaty men pretending to be big, bad and throwing each other around a small enclosed square ring? It is time for the news to give equal coverage to other activities that happen with great frequency and that more people enjoy – and enjoy without the constant exposure to and constant putting forth the image that this is what we want to see and hear.

Get real folks – find a life and get out of this sports trap!

And thanks again for this forum – keep up the good work.  You are the only place I call for bed & breakfast.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

The Brotherhood

Monday, June 25th, 2012

copyright Bettia Network, inc. 2012 for Marceline Donaldson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now What!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Apple Cider Vinegar Uses

Wednesday, June 6th, 2012

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2012

In response to a guest request for uses for Apple Cider Vinegar:

There are thousands of ways to use Apple Cider Vinegar – both for health and cleaning purposes.  We have zeroed in on only a few because we need to test everything before we put it out on the blog.  Needless to say, we use Organic Apple Cider Vinegar

If you search Bettina Network’s Blog under the category ‘Apple Cider Vinegar’ you will find uses we have previously published in this blog.  You can also find other uses for Apple Cider Vinegar if you search the internet.  There are several really good books – some out of print, but discoverable in estate sales – written decades ago, which are fantastic.

The huge use, – the one we find that has infinite health benefits is the use of Organic Apple Cider Vinegar as a deodorant/anti perspirant.  (No, you can’t substitute White Vinegar – not even Organic White Vinegar).

I believe we have a blog on this and we have had ongoing trials with different people using it.  Now that the weather has turned really warm, we have found that using a little Apple Cider Vinegar splashed under your arms after a shower will keep you feeling cool and odor free.  We have also found that when your energy starts to flatten, another splash of apple cider vinegar under the arms and a little rubbed on the face will bring your energy up in dramatic ways.

It is amazing how something so cheap and so totally effective would not be used by millions.  Are we so detached from the ways of our grandparents that instead of following their lead, which they acquired from following their parents and grandparents, we are the generation which follows those whose job it has been to market the latest to us.  The latest things to pad the pockets of the few at the expense of the health, well-being and financial resources of the many?

We all are using one of the many Deodorants and Anti-Perspirants on the market.  That says a lot for the success of the marketing campaigns which have been aimed at making us think if we didn’t use the products they are currently marketing we would smell bad, be considered amoral and the ‘good’ people of the world would not want us around.

In fact, if we use the products being promoted for our use with beautiful women, flowery scenes, romantic music, comedy and/or cutesiness there are serious possible health problems involved.  We worked hardest in trying to discover some way to live in public around other people and not smell nor cause ourselves health problems into the future.  When we heard the way anti-perspirants work is to clog your pores with aluminum, we threw out the anti-perspirants and deodorants – no matter how good the marketing and advertising.  Apparently,  you don’t smell because the perspiration and bacteria which eats the perspiration causing the odor can’t get started because you can’t perspire.  We always thought that perspiration was a natural bodily function with a reason to preserve your health and well being.

That freaked us out.  Especially since we have heard the stories about Aluminum being one of the contributors to starting Alzheimer’s, plus a long line of other health problem possibilities.

We have had feed back from a few people in the Bettina Network about using Apple Cider Vinegar first thing in the morning – a little in a glass of water and drink it down – but we haved no way to know if and how this is effective, so we will stick with the use of Apple Cider Vinegar as a very effective deodorant.

We also find it good to use cleaning house.  We use it with Olive Oil.  The Olive Oil poured on OOOO steel wool will clean and wax the furniture and Apple Cider Vinegar does an excellent job at washing  walls and etc.

In a Bettina Network home you will find a bottle of Apple Cider Vinegar in the bathrooms with a rag for you to use to clean the bathtub.  The homes have clean bathrooms, but many guests, when they travel, don’t take a bath, in spite of wanting to take a bath and being accustomed to baths instead of showers.  They are afraid of the tub and assume the hotel and/or the bed & breakfast and/or the inn, etc. could possibly not have cleaned the tub the way they would like it clean.  Since the Apple Cider Vinegar is a disinfectant, we came upon the idea of putting a bottle in the bathrooms so guests can use it anyway they see fit.

Another use we have for Apple Cider Vinegar is in the clothes washer.  We put in the detergent and fill the softener container with Apple Cider Vinegar to help clean and disinfect the wash – the sheets, towels, etc.

Doing just those few things will dramatically reduce your cleaning budget and increase the cleanliness and germ-freeness of your home.  It will be pleasant smelling – no off-gases – nothing to hurt your hands or get into your blood stream and wreck havoc producing illnesses you become baffled by because you can’t figure out their genesis.

We have heard about using it to rinse your hair and do all kind of other things, but the above is what we are trying and getting feed back from so it is all we can talk about at the moment.

Hope this helps.  Let us know if you find other uses, we love the feeback and try all suggestions (within reason).  It helps us and others and will probably wind up in a blog.  If it does, we will give you credit or post it anonymously, if you don’t want your name used.

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Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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______________________________________________________________

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 


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