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A Promoter of Conspiracy Theories – President?

December 6th, 2016

America – really?  You elected a man who was the spokesperson and promoter of conspiracy theories as your president? Really?  Come on – that can’t be real.  Are you really that racist, America?

The last president spent eight years in office – an African American.  He was elected – and re-elected.  He was respected around the world.  He wasn’t perfect, but he did a pretty good job.  He had no scandals during his time in office.  He had no affairs.  He spent his time with his family.  He raised two daughters and now into their teen years – some say, the most difficult time for parents.  And still, after seeing all of that you elected who?  A man who was the spokesperson in Chief for the Birther Movement?  Who was on television and in countless videos speaking far and wide about Barack Obama not being an American.  Who called your duly elected president a liar.  A man who claimed that your American president was living a lie to his fellow Americans by claiming to be an American when he was actually born in Africa.

America, you laughed at this Donald Trump, the Conspiracy theorist in Chief – and then you elected him your next president?  You made him the butt of many jokes and the late night comics had a field day.

America, is your need to identify as White that strong.  You are, after all, the ones who set up “White” as a race.  So I guess we should not be that surprised when you feel the need to protect this “White American” race.  You didn’t realize when you set up this White race identity that it would not only be about slavery and identifying the other as “Colored”, “Black” and now “African American”, but would become your ingrained identity and keep you forever needing to be seen as “better than”.  You went so far as  setting up White Privilege to go along with that White American identity.  Jealous of the English Colonialism with which they tried to rule the world?

Problem with that is colors always seemed to me to be more interesting, have more depth, be about something.  “White” seemed so lacking in ….. something.  And now I see what “White” lacks –  Character? Ethics? Truth? And has a little “Evil” ingrained.   We thought, at some point, that you would just become “American”.

Who is this man?  Who is this conspiracy theorist who so portrayed your president for eight years – and longer – as an African who was fooling the American public by claiming to be an American when in fact he was not.  And you – citizens of the United States – elected this man, this conspiracy theorist, your president.  Donald Trump – president elect of the United States. Chief Conspiracy Theorist.

Your founding fathers must be proud because they slipped into the Constitution this Electoral College, which they hoped would insure that White Males (hopefully) Northern Europeans would always be president of these United States of America.  You kept that Electoral College in your Constitution for hundreds of years as a bulwark against any serious kind of desegregation.  Wow! What foresight you all had.  But what a price you have paid.  Isn’t that what stopped Al Gore?  But then maybe you were right to do that because wasn’t that – no, couldn’t have been, must have been someone else – a look alike.  His character wouldn’t let him.  But then he claimed to have invented the internet, which dropped his character a rung or two, so maybe that was him running into that Tower.

And so the founders have reached into the 21st century with that desire to maintain slavery and have caused you Americans to elect a man who is:

  1. A conspiracy theorist.  His biggest conspiracy and most successful one was spreading the lie that Barack Obama was born in Africa and he and his family were lying about who he really is.  Will he have the support of and appoint other Conspiracy Theorists to his cabinet and other places in his government so his way of being “in charge” will continue on?
  2. A Casino Operator – a man who built and operated several casino’s.  Even one in Las Vegas.  Now, I was always told that Casino Operators could only exist if they were a part of the mafia or could only exist with the blessing and support of the mafia.  Las Vegas – New Jersey – big mafia strongholds in the United States (so I have been told). So what does that make your new president and who will really be in control of your government.  And you looked down on Cuba when it was overrun with mafioso from the United States.  Now that Cuba has cleaned itself up, will the United States of America be the place where that happens?
  3. The owner of a Construction Company – which built hotels, apartment houses, etc. AND would not allow Blacks to rent or live in any of his buildings.  I have seen the newspaper clippings and the cases against Mr. Donald Trump.  Not only against him, but he comes by this legitimately because he inherited this racism from his father, who also built buildings in which he did not allow Blacks to live.  Isn’t that a violation of your laws America?  And yet you elected this man, who with his family, violated your laws blatantly and is still violating your laws and you now call him your president-elect?
  4. A man, who reportedly only values a woman for her body – isn’t that sexism?  Doesn’t that also violate your laws, America.  And still you elected him your president?
  5. A man, who it rumored, has violated all of the 10 Commandments.  Maybe that is a slight exaggeration, but he has violated enough of them that those loud outspoken Evangelicals praising who we thought was God were really only singing their praises to god.  So we really can’t dump on them since they are  worshipping their idols and we do believe in freedom of religion.  We were only fooled a little while by the names they called him.  We were fighting them because we knew our God wasn’t HIM.  We knew our Jesus was born male, not to glorify maleness, but to glorify God.  It was offending God for us to be taking on such a fight to try to keep their god primary in front of everyone.  This election has cleared our eyes. Idol worship is not for us and never has been.   We wouldn’t be surprised if one day soon they don’t start calling their god, Donald Trump.  They have already started to talk about their god sending Donald Trump to them.  And how this is all their gods plan.  But they don’t seem to understand retribution – payment for past sins – God’s wrath – evil.  They seem to think that is a good thing sent by their god for their betterment.  Well, actually, it probably is being sent by their god in the hopes it will produce their betterment, but the way their leaders are running into the Tower offering their congratulations, their services, their excitement about the “Don’s” coming success it is seriously doubtful that God’s message is getting through.

HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN!

Abraham Lincoln didn’t bring you down! – he raised you up.

Martin Luther King, Jr. didn’t bring you down! – he raised you even higher.

but Donald Trump is bringing you wayyyyyyyy down.

And look at how your BIG MEN are falling all over themselves running in to kiss the ring. Their character – their ethics – their very souls are on display for all to see.

Wasn’t that Mitt Romney we saw running into Trump Tower and having dinner with the Almighty One?

And we though Mitt Romney was one of the good guys.  When he saw what was happening with the election in his beloved country, he stood up and was counted as someone who said he was not going along with this travesty.  He didn’t say “evil” but he might as well have because what he did say came down to the same thing. But what was he really doing?  Did he read the tea leaves and saw that Hillary Clinton was going to win so he was not downing Donald Trump and taking an ethical stand, but positioning himself to be in line for some kind of substantial position in Hillary’s government?

Oh, Oh, Nooooooooo! Not him too!  Oh my goodness – there goes Al Gore – into the Tower!  Well, we always had our suspicions about him.  He tried, but he just couldn’t pull off being such a good guy.  And now, we see him totally uncovered.

Oh, help me to my seat and cover my eyes and ear, I don’t know how much more of this I can stand.

Oh – and when your new president goes traveling around the world with his ‘wife” – which one?  The one who allowed all those pictures to be taken of herself in the various kinds of poses that a prostitute takes to advertise her wares.  Now, be careful here, I am not calling her a prostitute, but I said clearly, the kind of pictures a prostitute takes – naked on a bear rug with high heels up in the air and handcuffed to the bed and etc.  Some are calling her a soft porn model.  We will just look at the pictures circling the world and shake our heads.  Trump better get the Muslims and soon because when those pictures of his wife start circulating in religious Muslim circles – oh my!

And how does your president-elect handle his anti-semitism.  Well, his daughter has put him in a trap because she went off and married an Orthodox Jew.  Well, not only did she do that, but she became one herself.  Now you know in Judaism, the children take on the identity of the mother, so if she hadn’t converted, her children would not be in danger of being Jews.  But she went off and did the thing so now her husband and her children are Jews. So how did your President-elect handle that?  Is that his anger at this marriage, all of you Americans, that turned him so viciously against Muslims?  So badly so that he wants to eliminate all of them!  Is this going to be another purge by the Norther Europeans.  The last time they tried to get rid of the Jews.  This time there is a Jew sitting in the halls of power so they are going to try to get rid of all the Muslims.  Well, just as well.  Eventually, somehow, they will rid the world of all those they various and sundry people they consider “minorities”.

Oh, America, my heart aches for you.  Don’t you know you have to pay for your sins?  Haven’t you seen enough of God’s retribution to know that your day is coming?  Maybe this is it!  Maybe this is the beginning of your having to pay for the slavery you brought on Africans.  Or maybe this is the beginning of your retribution for what you have done to those who lived in the land before the Northern Europeans arrived.  What are they called today?  Indians?  No, that is politically incorrect – Native Americans.  What a name.  Call them Native Americans and then invade and destroy the little bits and pieces of land they have left and make sure it will soon be covered with the results of the many oil spills that will happen,as those Northern Europeans make loads of money in the companies that are going to dig up their privately owned land drilling for what?  Covering up what?  Taking back what?  Is this a new form of genocide – against those you have given the honorific title of Native American and made them think that this title was their idea?

Oh, America, I pray for you every day.  There are so many good people in your country.  What is going to happen to them.  They seem to be allowing these few others to take over and destroy every dream they have ever had.  Or maybe that is the problem – have they been so treated they don’t have anymore dreams?

My goodness, some of those good people are Northern Europeans.  Then who are these who have so wrecked the land and continue to wreck the land?  Who are those who let them?  I understand Donald Trump owns stock in the company about to destroy the land of the native Americans to cause oil to pollute the water so they will have nothing to drink.  And what about the rest of us – we won’t either.

You have allowed whoever these people are to destroy your country.  To invade and change the dreams of your people.  You started out in such a beautiful way.  We really hoped you would succeed.  But you have now been derailed and who knows if your country will ever be the same again.

Germany certainly didn’t expect to descend into a Nazi state.  And today, it seems as though it is only the Germans who really recognize the danger you are in America.  Have they learned from their mistakes?

So what now?  As your country began to become diverse – that beautiful diverse place where all were supposed to be welcome – what is the quote “bring me your tired,….”  That poem written by Emma Lazarus and cut into the stone with that gift from France to be a beacon to Exiles from all over the world

“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Oh, No!  Is the writer of this poem – Emma – a woman? Is that why they turned against immigrants?  Will that open the door to taking her poem off the Statue of Liberty?  And a better, more American under Donald Trump type poem in its place?

Well, that is certainly no longer America.  Will it ever be again?  With Donald Trump and his friends – not likely. The United States of America used to travel the world telling others how they should change to be more like America.  Walk hand in hand into the sunset with the Casino Operator and his Soft Porn Model wife – naahh, that doesn’t sound quite right.

And here you are America – flirting with becoming another Russia; another fascistic state with its super wealthy governing people and underlings in line for bread – you can ignore this if you dare, but stay on this road and that day is coming and sooner than you think.

I used to think America was the greatest nation on earth.  Today, I realize you are the most foolish.

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 Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

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37,456 PEOPLE

December 1st, 2016

The Number of People

who read Bettina Network’s Blog

in November, 2016

was 37,456.

Starting this month you are able to sign up to have Bettina Network’s Blog delivered to your email box whenever a new Blog is posted.

Up until now. you had to go to the Blog to read the newest one and you didn’t always know when a new blog was posted.

Just sign up using the green form which comes up on the page about 9 seconds after you start reading.  When the page becomes green, that is your sign to join a truly great group of people who are reading what Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community has to say.

If you are a member of that community you are able to have your blogs posted.  Just send what you want to say to bettinanetwork@comcast.net and we will post your blog – maybe editing a bit, if that is necessary – and maybe having a bit of conversation with you before posting. if that is necessary.  You can send pictures, drawings, whatever, to include with your blog.

The topic is up to you.  ACADEMIC PAPERS – because we have a very large academic readership; FUN QUOTES; with the advent of Donald Trump the interest in politics has zoomed up so feel free to send us POLITICAL ARTICLES, COMMENTS< and you can even tell us how to vote – not that we will take your advice, but its worth a try.

While we are using the blog structure, this is really becoming a newsletter and on its way to becoming a newspaper – written by people in the community who want what they have to say circulated to others.  If you have a response to anything, please feel free to send that via email.  We do not have the comments section of the blog open to anyone who want to comment so you will have to email your response as an article.  This is a CURATED BLOG.

COMMENTARY on whatever; RECIPE’s for your favorite foods; “MEMU’s you have experienced which sent you to heaven; CONSPIRACY THEORIES; ART – CRAFTS – MUSIC Videos that you have created; In other words – no end to the possibilities.

And we hope the end result is of interest to all of our readers.

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

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

TRUMP: An Analysis – Another One

November 18th, 2016

by: Marceline Donaldson 2016

No more calls, please.  I will give you my final say.  You probably won’t like it, but here goes:

What do I think about this election?  It told me much about myself in relation to the United States of America’s citizens and structures.

I am a minority and the laws of these United States have that written into them.  What is that? Me – and those like me – are less than.

Laws have been challenged, changed, made, amended, but there are always more because slavery was a part of the founding of these United States and that structural inconsistency is a part of what we have inherited.  And before slavery, the laws that enslaved Africans were based on the marriage laws – so sexism also plays a part.  That is why the Constitution must be a living, breathing, changing thing – and – that is why the bigots in this country want it to be set in stone.  To tell the truth is powerful.  To be able to hear the truth and respond is even stronger.

White Supremacy Ideology was developed during slavery to justify one group over another -better than another – which  allowed that slave holding group to go to Church on Sundays and participate in life as though they were good people.  Before that, WHITE did not exist and it was clearly not a race. These newly named WHITES demonized, demeaned, destroyed the lives of many to be able to be slaveholders and mistreaters of women and other minorities and still sit in the pew they paid for with what felt to them like a clear and clean conscience and to exercise their prerogative to be lazy.  Lazy how?  To import “immigrants,” who then were called “slaves” for the sole purpose of doing their work to achieve their goals of building this country.

That White Supremacist Ideology has maintained even into today and even though some slavery has been abolished.  Slavery involving Africans – stealing African citizens from their country and “importing” them into the United States.  That slavery is now illegal.  We have moved on because as technology develops and all of what has come from the Industrial Revolution morphs and changes,  this society does not need that  kind of physical labor anymore.  We now resort to “emotional slavery” – using women, dogs, other animals, etc. – but that is for another time.

Jews were “Blacks” and “N*****S until the Black Civil Rights Movement came along and then gradually they became “WHITE”.

East Indians – the same.

Today Latina’s are “Blacks”, but some are gradually taking on new racial identities as “WHITE”.  And so it goes.

We won’t even begin to include American Indians – foreigners on their own land.

This election has said clearly that I may be an American citizen because my family has been here from the beginning and my family has been added to with “immigrants” who have been here for several generations, but that does not make me free and equal.

My vote, for example, is only worth a percentage of what other peoples votes are worth.  If I lived in the “countryside” instead of in the city, my vote would count as one plus  – the plus coming from what was taken from other United States Citizens to make sure that my unequalness would remain wrapped into the institutional structure of this country.  Those not as equal cannot vote as equals and those ‘better than’ have their better-than-nes institutionalized in the structure of the country in which they live, contribute, and more.

The one vote lie that we tell United States citizens and others is just that – a lie.   Since I live in the city, I do not have “one person one vote”.  That lie has been told to me and mine for generations. And since most minorities – with very few exceptions – live in the cities – another way to discriminate, that has been around  for generations, has now come full circle and created a tyranny to maintain the bigotry which is still in our structures. Its maintenance has shown up when Whites most needed it – when they are about to become the “Minority”, but the structure is doing its best to maintain them as a “Majority” which dictates how everyone else shall live and how they shall maintain their White Supremacy.

That is what brought Donald Trump into office.  Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by over one million votes – 1,000,000.  If you are still saying 200,000 then check your figures, they are wrong.

Having won the popular vote, Hillary should be president of these United States.  What happened!  Why did she “lose”.

  1. She is a woman.
  2. She is a woman who identifies as a feminist.
  3. She is a woman who is well known in the African American and other minority communities because she has been there for all of us.  From the beginning of her career in law when she stood with Marian Wright Edelman working to bring about positive change for many children – who, but for, would have had a very different and much more difficult life.
  4. Many in the media were bribed by Trump with weekends in MaraLargo and other amenities and they then talked Trump 24/7.  Apparently there are no checks and balances to make sure that kind of bribery does not happen and it was given free range in this Presidential Campaign.  It doesn’t matter what you say as long as you keep saying it about me 24/7 with hardly a comment about my competition and that comment, when made,  is negative – and I will win any election in which I take part.
  5. Donald Trump viciously called out those who said anything, even slightly negative about him or his and so people became more reticent and more careful with what they were saying.
  6. Our own FBI through its head – Comey – interfered with the election of President of these United States to make the election come out in favor of their candidate Donald Trump.  A vicious turn and a total sell-out of what that Director of the FBI took an oath as to what he would and would not do.
  7. Wiki Leaks did all it could – went way above and beyond to elect Donald Trump over a woman.  When this happened and I saw how viciously they were going after Hillary, I began to believe the charges of rape against Assange.  This was certainly sexual abuse by an organization – Wiki Leaks.   It was rumored that he did these deeds hoping Donald Trump would give him asylum.  An immigrant from Sweden, after all, would be much more acceptable than those from Muslim countries, from Mexico and more.   (It will be interesting to see if he is prosecuted for hacking into computers without the permission of the owners of those computers.)
  8. Since Hillary Clinton supporters came mostly from the cities, clearly the percentage of one vote that each one had determined that this election would go against her.  Handicapping her voters and lying to them in the lead up to this election.  “Your vote counts.”  One person one vote”. etc.
  9. MAJORLY, Donald Trump “won” because he is the first candidate to come right out front to say he was a racist and sexist and made no bones about it.  In fact, he emphasized that fact by having racists and sexists – well known – along with their organizations up front in his campaign for the presidency of the United States.  We are a racist/sexist/homophobic/anti-semetic/anti-immigrant and more country.  We are a country in which bigotry reigns and has reigned throughout our entire existence.  We have covered over that fact with denial, blaming the victim, pointing the finger at other countries to deflect from our own misconduct, using code words to cover what we actually are saying and mean and more. To achieve the small gains we have achieved, over the generations, has taken many people giving their lives for this to happen.  It has taken multi-millions more to have given up their futures to take less financially and otherwise to fight for the rights of everyone.  It has taken enormous courage to stand in the face of bigotry and fight for its elimination.

  10. When faced with the possibility of electing a woman who was anti-racism/anti-sexism/anti-all of the other isms, there is no way we would do anything other than elect the racist who was running against her.  Why?  Because this country was set up to make sure that would happen.  The people in the country side who are, generally – with some exceptions, determined to live in a racist/sexist country cast votes worth more than those in the areas where minorities live.  They had more than one person one vote and it is not the only time that has happened in this country.  When it happened a few years ago – please notice we did not change the system.  We did not have a movement of any depth and breath to attempt to change the system to give one person one vote.  If that had happened Hillary Clinton would be president.
  11. To maintain the Electoral College and all that it brings in its wake is a racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitc things to do and our Civil Rights laws need to come into play as we move to eliminate this Electoral College and bring into this country a truer democracy with an actual one person one vote ethic.

  12. the way this is set up today, it violates the intention of my rights under the Constitution of these United States, which was and is that all people are created equal.  To make some more equal by conferring upon them a larger vote just because of their geography – the place where they live – is not understandable under what the United States of America claims to be to itself and to the rest of the world.
  13. Donald Trump did not appeal to the “working classes” he appealed to the bigots – the racists and the sexists.  That was made clear through the button Donald Trump supporters proudly wear – the NO to Political Correctness button – which is simply another way of saying “Yes, I am a bigot and proud of it.”  

  14. Donald Trump spent a few years setting the stage for this Presidential Campaign so he would not be misunderstood.  Years during which he called Barack Obama many ugly names, encouraging his followers to go even further.  Donald Trump insisted Barack Obama was an illegitimate president because he was not born in the United States and more.  Donald Trump was the “Mouth piece” for the birther movement and gave it breadth and depth.  Given those years of campaigning before the campaign, it was not possible for anyone to misunderstand who he was and from where he was coming.

    Many in the media are looking for the code words to use that will satisfy those of us who are angry – very angry.  The interviews and panels and other forms of media forensic dissecting of this election has been about everything but the truth and the truth needs to be told. At best, it has only been hinted at, except for a very few of these propaganda shows. 

    Listen to what people are saying and how they are twisting themselves into all kinds of contorted figures to say they are relived that a racist white man who sees women as sex objects has won and they voted for him because the demographic in these United States is on that precipice of change where it is going to roll over in this country from the majority being  “White” to majority being  “Minority”.  Their hope and their vote went to Trump because they think he will be able to stop and change that process or put something in place that mitigates and keeps “White” on top in spite of the fact that their numbers will be in the minority.

Need I go on?  I think that says it all.  The looking for ways to recast this so the United States of America can continue in its place where it is supported by hypocrisy – lies – and more needs to stop.  Truth needs to be told or America will never be great again.  Especially never great in God’s eyes.

The slogan – “Make America Great Again” is one everyone understands.  It comes from Ronald Reagans campaign where it meant then what it means now “Make America White Again” and that needs to stop.

TELL THE TRUTH AMERICA AND STOP THE BS.  IT IS TIME – UNLESS YOU WANT A COUNTRY RAVAGED THE WAY GERMANY WAS RAVAGED UNDER THE NAZI’s.  THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN WHEN JEWS WERE IN THE GHETTOES.  THAT HAPPENED WHEN JEWS STARTED TO BECOME SUCCESSFUL IN GERMANY AND STARTED MOVING OUT OF THE JEWISH GHETTOES INTO THE WIDER SOCIETY.  THE SHOCK AND ANGER OF THAT SET GERMANY ABLAZE.

We either learn from history or we are condemned to repeat it.  As it sets up today – the first government to come out to meet Donald Trump is Japan.

TODAY, You are looking at the first people being nominated by your new so called “President Elect”  Chris Christie is out because it is rumored that he put Donald Trump’s son-in-laws father in jail and their disagreement finally erupted and ended in Christie’s ouster.  True or not that could be symbolic for the rapists, thieves, thugs and assorted others now taking their place at the top of American Governmental circles.

You are looking at others who have compromised their values and ethics and are now running into Trump Tower because they are power hungry and are explaining away why they took the stands that they did when Donald Trump was running for President.  They clearly took those stands, not out of their beliefs, values, great moral character, but they took those stands because they thought Donald Trump would lose and they wanted to clear the deck so they could be appointed to a big position by who they thought was the new incoming President, Hillary Clinton.  That was all cast, by them,  as decisions coming out of their “character”, ethics, etc.  Was that really the case?  Because they are now showing their real character, ethics, etc. as they seek power, money and position and are backtracking to get in line in front of Donald Trump to kiss the ring.

God acts in mysterious ways and this is one.  We can now clearly see our so called “leaders” and we know exactly where they are coming from.  This time does not come around often.  More often than not our “leaders” are covered in their hypocrisy.   Today, the cover has been stripped off everyone and they are standing before you naked.  Take a good look and learn the lessons being taught.

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

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

 

 

 

Comments – Trump: An Analysis

November 15th, 2016

I could not wait to read your analysis on Trump.  I know about your “seer” and she is great.  Too bad you couldn’t get her to write what she has seen about all of this.  Breakfast at that house is magnificent.  I leave feeling as though I know myself better than ever and have a little insight into the future.

As I read your “Trump: An Analysis” and have read other postings around the internet.  I have not been able to get out of my chair and  because I am LMAO.  The comment that keeps coming up about Trump’s Personal  Asset Accumulation as he goes through his presidency includes the U. S. Treasury is priceless.  At first it was funny until I realized he had appointed his children as managers of his assets in a blind trust and then asked for them to be given this top secret clearance so they could be a part of his briefings each morning.  I am still LMAO.  It is so ludicrous that I don’t know any comedian who can top what is actually happening in these United States.  Is this serious?  Maybe I am  watching the latest SNL and don’t realize that this is all one bad joke – a funny one, but bad nevertheless!  If so, SNL has never been so funny!

I can’t imagine what comes next.

Just to make sure I get all of your analysis – assuming you are going to put more into your blog – I signed up to receive it in my email. Please check to make sure my sign-up is there because I don’t want to miss anything.  I could write more because I have more to say, but I can’t stop laughing.

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

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.

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TRUMP: An Analysis

November 14th, 2016

11/14/2016

We have all had quite a week.  We put out two petitions asking you to sign them.  The blog before this one has the URL which you can copy and put into your address line to get the petitions.  We also put out a petition through Groundswell.  These petitions ask that a Special Prosecutor be appointed to investigate this Presidential election.  Something that is as big a shock to the entire country as the result of this presidential election, by definition, is flawed.

All of these folks can’t have been wrong in their expectations.  We also received several communications with information which the sender asked we give to the Special Prosecutor.  We would like to receive that information, but we also strongly suggest you send any information you have to President Obama and U. S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch.  I doubt that either one is interested in naming a Special Prosecutor, but given the involvement of the FBI and its head Comey in moving this election in Trump’s direction with Comey or one of his underlings, apparently having given a heads-up to the Trump Campaign that information hurtful to Clinton and helpful to Trump was going to be released shortly before the election so the Clinton Campaign would not have time to react, this says such a Special Prosecutor needs to be named and soonest.  It is going to take a lot of pressure put on both Obama and Lynch to name such a Special Prosecutor.

We were asked to give an analysis of what we think happened.  We have our own resident seer who refuses, so after many conversations, this is a group effort as we try to fathom what happened.

What seems to be clear to us is that Donald Trump played the entire country.  We are not a country accustomed to the kind of lying, cheating and stealing that happened during this campaign.  How did he do it?  By divide and conquer.  A method of management which is as old as scripture. As old as the Scriptures held sacred by all religions.  What Trump did is what Scripture from many religions seems to have been written to prevent and/or warn its adherents against falling into this particular trap of Satan.  It is a way of control and conquer as old as humanity itself.  Power, greed, jealousy are some of the fuel which powers this management method.

To carry out a divide and conquer strategy on the scale it was carried out by Donald Trump and his campaign, to us, is the essence of evil.  It is one thing to engage in hypocrisy and to bend the truth for some small gains.  It is quite another to carry out this kind of grand scheme which is always attributed to whoever the evil one is in different religious bodies.

The race haters were called up and given a kind of acknowledgment, exposure and acceptance that they have never experienced before.  They reveled in all of the attention and the possibility that their way of life would become the American way of life.  At last, they would have their moment in the sun.

The civil rights fighters and those who have spent their lives trying to work within the system to bring America closer to achieving the dream of equality as they tried for generations to make real the promise written in the statue of liberty – ‘bring me your tired,………  They were also played by Trump and his campaign.

Besides the divide and conquer, we believe Trump worked through – or rather Vladimir Putin worked through Trump and his forces to help bring about the downfall of America – or at least to mitigate its power.  Both Trump and Putin were quite successful. Let’s not forget China as we bring together the foreign powers that helped the Trump victory become real.  When Trump talked to the president of China as he called to congratulate Trump, the President of China was talking to a man who promised the American public he would bring back manufacturing jobs to the United States.  True Trump made a few negative comments about China during his campaign, but what China saw was a Trump who bought his  steel from them in great quantities and whose daughter, Ivanka, has her clothes line made in the sweat shops of China.

That was easy to discover.  What is not so easy to discover is why the race haters and those who were wishful about bringing back a Colonial past were so easily manipulated by Trump and his group into thinking that a man, who gave his business to China and other countries, when that was his choice, would bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States.  This defies all logic.   A man who refused to give his tax returns to the American Public so they could see what was his involvements.  Where did that trust come from which convinced them that this man could be trusted when he said he was going to bring back to America jobs that had been outsourced to China and other countries?  What was it about this man that allowed the Evangelicals and other supposedly strong Christian to suspend their faith and belief to put it all in Trump.  This was a man who totally fit the description of those Jesus threw out of the Temple, whose money tables were overturned, and in the end when the sheep and the goats were line up on their way to eternity – his eternity set-up was called hell for an eternity.

With the United States being on the cusp of those considered ‘Minority” now becoming the “Majority”, all of those middle to upper middle-class folks (male and female), whose identity is fixed in the way this country is and the way it uses racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamaphobia, anti-semitism, anti-everything else except Northern European, to maintain their unearned identity, the fear of that event seems to be what motivated John and Jane Q Public who don’t want to be equal.  Why be equal when you have been “better than” for generations.

Maintaining their identity as “better than” is something they were born into, accepted, and were as skilled as Alcoholics in denial and finding excuses and pseudo reasons as to why things should not change.  Or better still, why they are changing, but it has to be a very gradual to no movement change.

All of this was sitting out there and Trump wrapped it all up in his campaign.

Lots going on in this election.

Trump played all of those forces and did it beautifully.  He weakened America while preaching the gospel of “Make America Great Again”.  Weakened America to the point of moving into the future with America being a country which would trail Russia and China in strength.  Many in these United States have been so wrapped up in fighting each other, no one was looking at this movement which was actually making the 1% stronger and everyone else weaker and poorer. That includes the race haters and those who have dreams of being on top again – the kind of on top countries were when Colonialism was the currency of the day.  Seeing America as an empire and them moving into the upper-classes is a dream that moved many people into the Trump camp.

What will Trump’s movement produce?  The serious reduction in regulation.  The regulators will be lining up at the unemployment office by the dozens.  The rich can’t get much richer without reducing the Regulation that has been set in place.  Think of what will happen when they cancel Dodd.

Serious reduction in health care to the point of having many millions of people unable to get health care or needing to go back to losing everything they have acquired if they are hit with a serious illness is what lies behind the canceling of Obamacare.  If folks have to struggle with serious illness without hospital or doctor care in their families, they won’t be much interested in what Trump and his colleagues are doing.

Racism, etc. is not an economically viable way to run a country.  One reaches the point the United States is now reaching where super large businesses will take over and governments will be symbolic and do things which are adjuncts to what will be sanctioned by the state religion.  Evangelism turns into State Churches.

White Churches, with a sprinkling of minorities will gradually change until they all have flags in the sanctuaries and they are clearly appendages of the state.  The state officials will become awesomely like priests, ordained by god.

The mastermind behind all of this is Donald Trump.  Only he doesn’t realize that already he is being moved aside.  He isn’t even inaugurated yet and his time of being relevant and necessary has already passed.  He can keep his golden palace for a little while, but eventually even that will be gone.

If he had been a younger man he would not have been entrusted with such a ‘revolution’.  But an old man – with an extremely fragile ego – and something wrong with his sexual functioning that he needs to constantly build his sexual prowess up with his talk and womanizing and more was an ideal foil around which to bring about this major growth of the 1%.

What is most amazing is that those who worked for and voted for Trump to become President with the hope and belief that he would make their condition better are soon going to discover he is making the 1% better, which means – by definition – the rest of us are going down the slide to a much lower economic place, because the 1% needs automaton workers, not those moving on up.

Surrounding himself with men who are in the same place as he is and women who see themselves as only having worth as sex objects, Trump has gathered around him a group that cannot take over and do a great job with the ship of state.  By the time they have paid attention to their fragile egos and to their images, there is nothing else left to do the work of the state.

Moving downscale and marrying women who are steps beneath the last wife – both younger, which means more child like with less experience and less ability to function as an equal with no other redeeming education, experience or anything else not dependent upon Trump and those like him you have the 40% plus who voted for Trump and are going to be worthless except as consumers.  They will be shortly cast aside into the pit with the rest of us, working to maintain the very shallow and artificial lifestyle of the 1% and where is the redemption.

Is this the point at which we realize that we have all been working to set the stage for the Second Coming?

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

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

 

One Response to Trump’s “Election”

November 10th, 2016

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https://www.change.org/p/department-of-justice-investigate-donald-trump-s-election-because-it-was-obtained-by-fraud-and-foreign-intervention?recruiter=168617629&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=share_email_responsive

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I believe this election was carried on and won fraudulently.  So we are asking you to sign the petition asking the Department of Justice to investigate.  We are also asking that if you know anything that happened during this campaign, which is even a little bit spurious you contact us with that information.  I have set up a system to collect all such information.

The petition is being done through www.change.org and can be previewed on my Facebook page.

Please send any information to:

Marceline Donaldson – P. O. Box 380585 – Cambridge, MA. 02238

For example – we received information suggesting that Assange, from Wiki Leaks, may have had an agreement to go after Hillary during the campaign (which his group did – ignoring everyone else) and if Trump won, he would have some kind of asylum in the U. S.

We are also asking that Comey – head of the FBI be investigated because he went out of his authority to announce that Hillary would be considered for re-investigation because of new emails he claimed to have found on someone else’s computer.  We understand the Trump people knew about this several months before from Comey and were waiting for the announcement, which they constantly talked about coming just days before the election.  They said a bombshell would be dropped just days before the election which would destroy Hillary’s chances for election.  We are collecting any and all information which comes our way to put it together for an investigation which first – might put this election on hold, or may be used in some other way to stop this United States from moving more in the direction that Hitler took Germany after his election.

What is clear to us is that Hitler was by no means as far down the road to turning Germany into the Nazi heaven it became as Trump is as he starts claiming what he calls his victory and his ‘election’ as President of the United States.

Thank you for your help and support,

Marceline Donaldson

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

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

WHO READ THE BLOG IN OCTOBER!

November 1st, 2016

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In October, 2016 

 37,836 people

came to the Bettina Network Blog

to read what we had to say

“““““““““““““““““`

We hope they were not disappointed and what they read added something good to their lives.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One of our goals is to add to your base of:

Knowledge – Wisdom – Art – Imagination – Music 

Good food – Great Entertainment!

“““““““““““““`

We try to do this

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

through Truth Seeking  

Good Investigative Journalism

““““““““““““““`

Sharing with you what is important to those who are members of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community in which your wealth, style, class, race, genealogy, job don’t define you

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We hope to share with you

tools we find and hope you can use to reach

 a better understanding of our shared humanity

AND

to help you make ever better decisions about WHO

you are and your CHOICES

as you go through life moving ever closer to

that end time we all face!  

How can we live this life graciously,

with elegance, kindness, understanding,

incredible style

AND ESPECIALLY

with love of ourselves

and of all those with whom

we share this Universe!

If you are a member of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community you are able to add your thoughts, your research, your political commentary, your recipe’s, your life advice or whatever you want to say – report on – have fun with – have art to share – a video to share.  The possibilities are only limited by your life and your lifestyle.  Bettina does, however, control content.  She is generous, but won’t give up that control.  Not yet, at least!

We may even be open to publishing a few blogs from those who have gone, but have things to say about their afterlife or may have something to say to those they left behind – who knows what will pop up in Bettina Network’s Blog.

Keep reading!

We finally figured out how to make it possible for you to sign up to have the blog delivered to your email box so you don’t miss anything.

A green box will pop-up and all you have to do is fill it in and you will be subscribed to Bettina Network Blog.

We have to give kudos where they belong.  We use BOXZILLA to produce those boxes which allow you to subscribe to our Bettina Network Subscriber List.  The support they gave us as we tried to do a simple thing was amazing.  We are not accustomed to companies on the internet giving service.  Selling you something – fine!  But not many have follow through where you can call or email for help and get first class help and immediate response.  They go all out to make sure you like and can use their product.

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

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

Madeleines – A Delicately Fabulous Tea Cookie

October 26th, 2016

madeleineWe bake Madeleines every day, yet by the end of the day they are gone!

It is one of those light delicacies that won’t let you have just one.  And they stay in memory for long after they have been eaten.

They are the tea cakes which give meaning to the reference to ‘delicacies’.

They draw you back to that lovely plate for more until you simply have to leave the area.

AND, they are super easy and quick to make.

Within one-half hour, from start to taking them out of the oven,  you should have about 36 of these beauties.

They must, however, be made of the finest organic ingredients you can find – which is the secret to their success.

INGREDIENTS    and    PROCESS

Turn on your oven and set the temperature to 350 degrees

In the bowl of an electric mixer put

three eggs

one tablespoon organic vanilla syrup (or organic vanilla)

2/3 cup organic turbinado sugar 

start the mixer and let these ingredients whirl until they are light and fluffy

meanwhile, melt one stick organic butter (salted or unsalted – your choice)

In another bowl put the following

One cup organic whole wheat flour

One tablespoon organic corn starch

One teaspoon baking powder

a touch of himalayan salt

Mix these together with a wire whisk until they are well mixed, light and fluffy

Add the melted butter to the egg mixture and let the electric mixer whirl for a few seconds

Add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture – mixing by hand because at this point you have to be careful not to over mix the ingredients and using the mixer might just do that.  Once you have a feel for this mixture you can use the electric mixer, if you so choose.

Have on hand at least two Madeleine tins – no aluminum please!

No “non-stick” pans

simple, traditional, tin,  Madeleine pans buttered properly will not stick

Preferably, using a brush, with a bit of melted butter, brush the Madeleine tins with the melted butter – brushing the areas around the indented parts as well.

Do not stint on the butter as you “butter” your tins – the secret to nonsticking cakes

Put the Madeleine mixture in the tine – we use 1/2 tablespoon for each tin.

That might seem like a very little bit, but these are very little bit cakes.

If the mixture in each indentation does not quite come up to the edge you are in good shape because these cakes will rise and you don’t want them to rise above the edge – that takes away from the look of these beautiful cakes.

Enjoy:  You can add a small dollop of homemade marshmallows to one of the cakes and put two together for a different treat.  Or you can do the same with jelly or preserves or anything else you can think of.  You can add chocolate chips or shredded coconut, etc. to the mix just before spooning out into the Madeleine pans.  But I think you will find these perfect just as they are.  Our only vice is putting two tablespoons of organic syrup into the mix because that intensifies the taste that makes these so special.  It is really a way to mainstream vanilla flavoring.

We keep them on a cake plate on the kitchen counter and they last about three minutes.

Proust isn’t the only one who will go down in history as having sung the praises of these fantastic little cakes.  You will too!

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

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

JACK GREENBERG – NAACP Legal Defense Fund

October 15th, 2016

by: Marceline Donaldson

I read this morning of the death of Jack Greenberg and it hit me much harder than I would have expected.

Jack Greenberg, Percy Julian, Dolores Orey and so many others are among the people who surrounded me at a very dire time of my life.  I am so grateful for the fact that they lived and loved and shared and were there.  I am grateful for the way they lived their lives.  I am grateful for the way they gave to society to stand between the oppressed and the oppressors with the law as their weapon.

Reading about Jack Greenberg’s death feels to me as though an era has passed.

As a very young girl, who lived in a middle-class Black community surrounded by people who made her feel that she was really incredible and could do anything she set her mind to –  it was a recipe for constant conflict with a racist, sexist society and its institutions throughout the rest of my life.

Living in a society which did all it could to teach me that I was inferior; my hair wasn’t good enough; my skin wasn’t white enough; my brain wasn’t intelligent was defective and inferior; my birth and life’s goal should be to walk steps behind, to serve Whites, to not be pushy and absolutely to not rock the boat.  Given the lessons this society tried to teach me, the way of this country should be the way it was then and my job and life should be lived not challenging, not noticing the differences in treatment, accepting whatever this society forced on me and doing it without complaint.  The same lessons – but in a different era – which were given to the slaves were also given to Blacks not in slavery, but fighting for their civil rights.   Those that fought back and tried to escape were crazy and somehow emotionally off base, while those who accepted and did everything they could to glorify and serve their masters and mistresses were sane, substantial and who slaves and years later, more contemporary Blacks, should be.

If I did that, it was clear I would be able to live a very nice, quiet life as the wife of a very nice quiet man and have very nice quiet children.  Not very well off economically, but comfortable enough for a Black family.  If I rocked the boat; challenged the racism and sexism in this society; brought those challenges outside of the community in which I was raised there would be hell to pay.

I used to wonder why the reality of Black history was only taught in Black schools.  In White schools, not even the handful of Black children who attended those schools knew much about the oppression; the hell; the violence; the protests, revolutions, mass deaths that Blacks had gone through over the years.  As I grew older and moved out of that Black community, I realized why that was so.  If Whites are kept ignorant of Black history – especially the racial oppression and violence perpetrated on Black communities – the denials could be kept, continued and the racism could thrive.

My grandfather, O.C.W. Taylor, was principal of a school in New Orleans, but his love and passion was journalism.  He co-founded the Louisiana Weekly with C. C. Dejoie, Jr. and had a television and radio show on WNOE in New Orleans.  He was also involved in rocking boats and causing huge waves.  When he did all of this, I was right there – at four or five years old, probably younger and very definitely as I grew older.

He brought people to New Orleans through his work – like Thurgood Marshall,-  to be a part of panels discussing civil rights.  He was also a part of severing the organizational ties between the NAACP and what became the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.  I think, but for the efforts of those who were behind that separation,  Brown vs the Board of Education would either not have happened or something like it would have happened years later and much diluted in its affects.

My most fun memories of those days was of sitting at the table at Dooky Chase’s Restaurant in New Orleans with all of those men listening to their conversations.  I don’t know if I understood it all, but those times certainly formed who I am today and how I have lived my life.  Today, I see this little girl at this table with all these men and it is amazing that it is me. Today,  as an adult, looking at those pictures on paper and in my minds eye, I see someone very small, looking totally out of place.  Then, at the time it happened, my feelings were that I was totally equal to any of them and joined the conversation whenever I had anything to say.

Jack Greenberg was a very young man, at the time, and just becoming involved with this group.  It was not an all Black group and that felt very right.

It was normal and good, at the time, the way Blacks and Jews worked together on fighting for the civil rights of everybody.  Later – as society began to notice the giant steps taken with this melded group, there began to be efforts and some very successful, to propagandize the Black community to reject its Jewish brothers and sisters and to have only Blacks involved.  Everyone had a theory as to why this was necessary.  None of those theories acknowledged the strength of that group which wound up at Dooky Chase’s Restaurant and made so many forays into the thick of racism and eventually sexism moving those barriers back a little at a time.

Years later – working for the Pillsbury Company and finding myself in the middle of racism and sexism in Corporate America, all of that came flooding back and I called the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.  Highly indignant that I was experiencing racism and sexism in a job, especially when I was just out of Harvard Graduate School of Business, I was outraged.  Somehow, that was supposed to inoculate me from such experiences.  Instead, it showed me the reality of life in these United States for a Black woman.  I saw the structures which supported the racism and sexism I was experiencing – their history – where they came from – how they were established and maintained.  It was an incredible awakening.

I wasn’t able to reform and remake this society, but before it crushed me, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund took the case of Donaldson v Pillsbury, knowing it would be difficult because it was the first management case filed by a Black woman.

There I met Jack and Deborah Greenberg.  Two very committed people.  I had met Jack before, but didn’t realize that until my grandfather told me the stories of my youth and identified some of those who peopled my growing up years.  Jack and Deborah’s lives were wound up in the LDF and they were very good at what they did.  I was not simply a “Plaintiff”.  The rest of my life was important to them.  They invited me to LDF Yearly Conferences; I attempted to raise money in Minneapolis through a Black and White Ball for LDF and they tolerated that; I spent a lot of time in New York because my life elsewhere was falling apart.  The helplessness of what I was experiencing was mitigated by Jack and Deborah and Percy Julian and Dolores Orey having me sit in on the discussions of my case and contributing;  listening when my anger went over the top; allowing me to be equal and acknowledging my humanity while it was being destroyed everyplace else.  When my car was set afire I called LDF; when people circled my house in a very threatening way and I was alone in the wilds of Wayzata, Minnesota with three small children, I called LDF and Percy came to visit; when all kinds of other things happened during that time frame – I called LDF – and they responded.  As I looked at how they operated over the years, what I saw was the person who headed the organization, Jack Greenberg,  had a humanity which permeated the entire group.

My grandfather filled in the blanks for me on why Thurgood Marshall looked to Jack Greenberg as his successor at LDF.  And from my experience with the group, it made a lot of sense. I didn’t know about Jack Greenberg’s family history with anti-semitism until years later.  It was not something he paraded out to justify his work or his involvement in civil rights.  And, not everyone with that family background feels called to attempt to address the evils they experienced, but thank God Jack Greenberg did.

Towards the end of my active association with Jack and Deborah Greenberg, Percy Julian, Dolores Orey and others, I was caught up in a group of people who were lobbying to replace Jack Greenberg with an African American because they claimed the organization should have  a Black head.  It was amazing to me because of the work Jack had done and was doing.  What was this about?

As I talked to more people, it became clear that it was about propaganda being inserted to undermine the LDF.  There were White propagandist in the midst doing everything they could to convince me and others that our efforts should be placed in achieving this separatist goal.  It was very sad.  Especially since many of the Blacks involved with this separatist time had done nothing to begin to contribute to the Civil Rights Movement.  They talked loud and long, but they were contributing and working in the movement to re-establish Jim Crow in the country and this was just one of many places they wanted to see that total separation happen.  It was tragic. It was also clear that if they succeeded all the work of Jack Greenberg, Thurgood Marshall and others would be reversed.

I was back and forth to New York about that time and none of those machinations seemed to bother Jack.   He just continued with business as usual.

And now, Jack Greenberg, Percy Julian and Dolores Orey have all died.  Memories of them and their lives are still very much alive and will always be as long as we value the present by looking to the past and making that a total picture as we move into the future.  There isn’t much greater than to know  your history as you live your present.  Deborah Greenberg moved on to work with others to found the Women’s Legal Defense Fund.

It was a rare time – a painful time – a truly beautiful time – which showed the human spirit in all of its grandeur.  When pressed and there are attempts to enslave, oppress, make others less than – there are those who take the other side and spend their lives doing everything they can to remove those pressures and make life better for us all.  At the top of that list was Jack Greenberg.

My prayer for Jack is one of giving thanks that he lived and made the decisions he made on how to live his life.  Without him and all the others we would all be a little less than we are; a little more oppressed; lacking an incredible example of a life well lived and a life given to very effective service to others.

Rest on your laurels Jack and the knowledge that many remember you and your achievements and your spirit.  As you now find Thurgood Marshall again and all of those with whom you worked who have gone before, it will be an awesome reunion and the reward for a job well done.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/jack-greenberg-civil-rights-lawyer-who-helped-argue-brown-v-board-dies-at-91/2016/10/12/066a55a6-90c0-11e6-a6a3-d50061aa9fae_story.html

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

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.

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October 8th, 2016

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

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

The TRUMP TICKET Exposed!

October 5th, 2016

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2016

The Vice Presidential debates for the 2016 campaign for the Presidency of the United States happened last night.

They laid bare the American soul.

The candidate for president – Donald Trump – has shown himself to be unstable, irresponsible, saying one thing today and another tomorrow and basically someone who looks as though he is on a cocaine high.  He has also shown himself to be a liar.  One who lies to manipulate and win.

The candidate for vice president – Mike Pence – has shown himself to be the sociopath on the ticket.  A cool, calm, collected, elegant liar who is totally unaffected by his lies because a sociopath is who he is at his core.  He can lie and justify the lies of those around him without batting an eye – without his eyelids twitching – without any other physical sign showing that his body can’t stand the lying.  So you know that Mike Pence, the sociopath is an accurate comment.

This election has ‘outed’ all of the problem areas in the American populace; American history; American economics, etc.

Up until now, all of these things were pretty much hidden, with code words used, when it was necessary to talk about some of our problems without really being upfront and truthful.  And so, the problems have continued and grown worse.  We, however, have gotten better at our denials and embroidery and all the others ways we have developed to make a lie look like the truth and to make the denial of a citizens rights look as though that person is hyper-sensitive, complaining unnecessarily, and it is all their fault.  That is certainly some of what we have used to get into and continue slavery for a few hundred years; to maintain Jim Crow for a hundred or more years after that; and to force some of the citizens of the United States to use all of their resources, missed opportunities; and more to fight the racism which is constantly tearing them, their families, their friends apart.  That is how sociopath as a disease runs all through this American society.  That is certainly why we now have a Donald Trump candidacy with a Mike Pence Vice Presidial candidate and almost half the country backing their candidacy.  This election is making a major statement about the American character and it is not pretty.

To listen to the media comment on the debate,  one is struck that as Americans we all have different degrees of sociopath.

Mike Pence responded to questions about what Donald Trump has said in the past by denying everything negative.  He could do that because the media agreed to not fact check this debate.  That was a plus for and promotion of the Donald Trump candidacy.  Excuse it however you want to, that is a fact.  It was clear when the announcement was made that this debate would not be fact checked the media was opening the door for lies, distortions, and more.  And the candidate did not disappoint.

Mostly the talk has been about the cool, composed style of Mike Pence and how Tim Paine lost so many points because he was too aggressive, emotional and more. Tim Paine lost points with the media and many of its followers because he responded to a pack of lies the way most people respond to such.  Certainly not with denial and more lies on top of the lies with which one is confronted.

I am not sure I could have kept my cool if I were debating someone who was lying consistently and nothing was stopping him.  To respond in the cool composed manner the media expected of Tim Kaine would have said Kaine was bordering on the sociopath.  His upset, emotional and sometimes overly aggressive way of responding is normally how someone responds to being faced with a barrage of lies at an important moment with millions of people listening.  That must be an incredibly frustrating time.  To act any other way would be to project an emotional lie.

And why do we have folks complimenting Mike Pence for his “style” and demeanor and to give him excuses for the lies he told such as – he must not listen to the coverage given his running mate; or, he probably has immune himself to Trump’s lies and can deny all that he denied because he hasn’t heard Trump say these things – and on and on and on.

But Mike Pence prepared for this debate and one way of preparing is to go over the issues and your tickets response to the issues.  Given that, his responses to say Trump didn’t say that or to attempt to turn something Trump did say into something else in that cool way he had, these are the actions of a long terms strong sociopath.

If you didn’t recognize that – check yourself.

If you did, then you also recognized that the society in which we live is so wrapped up in its own form of sociopath that it didn’t see anything wrong with Mike Pence’s performance.

To deny the racism in this society is to lie about what you know and what your ancestors knew was true.

To deny the sexism in this society is to lie about what you know and what your ancestors knew was true.

To allow homelessness with human beings sleeping on the streets; having no jobs; no care of any kind; and being treated by many in the most rejecting, demeaning and ugly way and to deny that you know this about yourself and others and that you know this is what your society is about is a form of sociopath.

To work in a corporation and to see how it is destroying human life – the environment – plus other kinds of ugly and evil things and not address this while denying the existence of what you see on a day to day basis is a form of sociopath.

I could go through the entire list, but you get the message.

So, when a Mike Pence comes on television and lies the way he lied on Tuesday evening and to have the media saying he “won” the debate for various reasons says we have a long ways to go to reach some kind of caring humanity.  We are stuck in a lying, self-justifying, sinful place which we then justify, substitute a great style to accept the lying – its ok to lie if you do it elegantly and in an acceptable way, and more.

All corners of this society are being exposed by Donald Trump’s campaign and Tuesday evening showed us the worst.

I want to be around people who are distressed, disturbed, distraught when they are faced with lies and liars – the way Tim Paine was when he was faced with Mike Pence and his lies and denials.

I want to be around people working to make this world a better place for all of us.  Not perfect people because we only seem to reach perfection.  In actual fact we are all flawed, but working on those flaws.  To be around those with the perfect persona projected by Mike Pence on Tuesday hardens us back to the actors and others who have presented perfect images to us during their political campaigns and we bought them hook, line and sinker.  But even in the buying we knew it was a lie, we just engaged in denial to accept and promote the liars and elect them to the important posts in the land.

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

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

WHY VOTE FOR DONALD TRUMP!

October 1st, 2016

What we all have been trying to understand is why so many people – good, kind, loving, caring people – are supporting and intend to vote for Donald Trump.

They have seen – as we all have – Trump’s negatives.  So why and where does this support come from?  We are past the racism, and sexism which has been used to explain Trump.  We are looking at and talking to the many who are 120% behind Donald Trump and nothing is coming between them and the “Don”.  How come!

His supporters have heard his lies and knew they were lies.  They’ve heard how he treats women and know that to be true.  They’ve heard about his racism and knew that also to be true.  They’ve heard all the hints about his bad temper and thin skin and have seen and heard how he will quickly and viciously insult anyone who he even thinks has insulted him.  They’ve heard the hints at the possibility of his being tied to the mafia – both within the United States and Internationally.  And they have heard and seen how all of the greats and near greats who are greatly respected in the United States are now falling all over themselves to detach themselves from being seen as even passively supporting Donald Trump.

So why are there so many still in his camp?

Much of this support is coming from people who have been lied to – cheated – who have seen their hard earned money stolen from them by those within the system in what has been made to look like ways supported by our laws.  They understand the evils of this system in which we live better than those at the top or near the top who have benefitted from the ugly ways of those who pull the strings for the money to flow from the have nots to a handful of the haves who can then step out into the spotlight looking clean, honest and working for the people.  They have lived through some financial horror stories, which most people can’t or won’t believe and which no one is fixing.  Given that, it is totally possible to overlook Trump’s negatives and hope that their lives will be better because Trump will fix it.

Let me give you a few examples – real life examples in which we have been involved.  Having a Foundation you can use it in one of many ways.  One way is to give money to be able to take a 501(c)3 deduction on your income taxes.  Or, you can give money, take the deduction – which doesn’t mean a lot to you – but you take away what you really need, which is the feeling that you have helped those in need. (But you have not had to rub elbows with those in need the “Foundation” people have been hired to do that – and even the “Foundation” people keep themselves removed from the actual recipients.)  Or, you can get involved, personally with the people your Foundation is working to help and therein lies the path to depression, frustration, disbelief, the death of your idols and the ideology with which you were raised, and for many,  your belief in the religious structures in which you function  and more.

Let me tie into the Wells Fargo mess and give you an actual example.  Put yourself into this one persons’ place and then you will see Donald Trump in a very different light.

A Disclaimer:   We are not advocating that you vote for Trump.  That vote would only make things worse, because all of this pain and suffering we have seen would be brought into the light and done without the cover under which it now functions.  Under a Donald Trump administration the front under which all of this evil operates would be stripped bare and made totally legitimate and we would then have to function seeing evil with nothing shielding us from the seriously infected swamp in which it lives.

Back to WELLS FARGO:

Why fight such a giant?  What have they done?  You’ve heard the Congressional hearings.  You’ve read in the papers how President Stumpf has been forced to give back millions to the company. Lets take a  look at the human cost to John and Jane Q. Public:

Assume you have a mortgage with Wells Fargo.

That opens you up to some incredible financial games, created by greed which has created today’s billionaires.

How?

There are many ways – this is just one.

Given your mortgage, Wells Fargo people are now able to open your finances and look in – and from what we have seen, they do just that. What do they have to gain? If they cause you financial trouble across the street, then at home, you will be subject to fees and penalties because they have set up a situation in which you stumble.  If you fall, so much the better, they have everything.  If you just stumble, that’s not so bad and that’s ok too because their fees are high.  They benefit under either scenario.

One other way you are vulnerable to them is through their Wells Fargo Shareowners Service.  A seemingly small, innocuous bureaucratic division which seemingly is quite straight forward in what it is tasked to do.  A little bureaucratic place in this great giant that you probably don’t realize exists.  A little place that interacts with and can control your assets in larger corporations whom they serve.

They are the agents – handling the stock transactions for several large corporations – like Target Stores.  So, let us assume you have a Wells Fargo mortgage and you own Target stock.  Now, lets assume that stock was purchased through Targets Direct Purchase Plan.  What a benefit.  You can send the company small amounts of money to purchase their stock.  So you establish such an account for your children and over the years accumulate Target stock by sending them just a few dollars each month.

Those few dollars add up to a few thousands of dollars and on and on it goes.

Now comes the time you need to sell that stock.  So you contact the transfer agent and ask them to send you the forms necessary for you to sell the stock.  They refuse.  You call again.  They refuse again.  And so it goes. What does that do to you?  You live your financial life assuming this is an asset you can convert to cash in a matter of days – or at least in a matter of a month at the longest, given the excessive times bureaucracies take to work.

Finally – months later – after much time spent on many telephone calls,  you get the forms.  You fill them out and spend over $20 sending the forms back to them – the original forms – via overnight mail to insure they get where they are going and so you have a record and can trace anything that might go wrong with the mail.  And then you wait – and wait – and wait.  But, nothing happens. They received the correctly filled out forms the very next day.  How do you know the forms are correctly filled out?  Because you took them to a bank and to a stock broker friend and you and the banker and the stock broker filled them out.  The banker executing a couple of the forms, as required by Wells Fargo Shareowner Services.

What happens as you wait for your money to be transferred into the account you indicated on your forms?  NOTHING!

So weeks later, you call – not Target, but Wells Fargo Shareowner Services.  Two large corporate entities tied together via this kind of transaction.  These two corporations are also tied to tens of thousands of people with small amounts of money they have accumulated over years of sending their bits and pieces of money to purchase Target stock. There are other large corporate entities so tied together.  Without knowing this you would not connect something happening to you through Target, inc. with Wells Fargo.

An interesting fact, but nothing that bothers you at the time – checking out Target to decide whether to continue investing in them at a later date you discover there is no way to contact their Executive Offices.  You don’t need to, but it is curious that their CEO is totally enclosed and cut off from any and all people except those close to him.  No telephone, no email, no way for the public to reach them. And this is a publicly owned corporation?  So you put that aside for later review.

What happens with the stock you are trying to sell?  The Wells Fargo Shareowner Services Company knows nothing about you, nor the forms you sent to them, and you have to hold on the telephone for over 45 minutes and insist and prove you sent forms to them while they search for these forms they claim to have “LOST”?

Finally, when you produce your proof of mailing, they find the forms and assure you the stock will be sold and you will be sent the money.

And then?  You get a telephone call from someone else from Wells Fargo Shareowner Services days later to say your forms are being sent back to you because they are not filled out correctly.  You ask why?  The person on the telephone does not know.  You hold on the phone and when someone finally comes back – they don’t know either.

So you get the forms back – and your finances are becoming a mess because you were selling the stock for a reason – you need the money. You have a business to expand.  You have projects you have started that need more funding. You have people you have promised to help who need the help now!

And then the fun begins.  For months nothing happens and you go round and round – sending letters, making telephone calls, getting nothing.  And your money is still tied up in Target stock – which you cannot use as money – it is just, at this point, worthless. You can’t even sell the stock through another stock broker because you don’t have the stock certificates – Wells Fargo Shareowner Services holds those and won’t send them to you either.

An interesting side note – Target, inc. comes from Dayton-Hudson, a Minneapolis based corporation.  Back in the day, Dayton-Hudson was known to be part of an interlocking directorate with influence and no inhibitions on using that influence to manipulate individuals – among other possibilities.

And remember – back a few paragraphs – your mortgage is being held by Wells Fargo.  So, is this accidental with one having nothing to do with the other or is something else operating here!

And then your door bell rings.  It is a Chinese Real Estate Agent who is offering to buy your property, claims she understands that you need the money and she has a client who is willing to pay cash – at half the value of the property, in a hot real estate market, where half leaves you a few million dollars short of the real value of the property, but here is the next step in this evil and greed which strips people of everything financially in the end.  It is nothing you could conceive in a country which touts itself as good and other countries as evil or at best as not so good.

You turn down the real estate agent – and at first you are mystified as to why she comes to your door with such an outlandish offer.  You don’t have financial problems so what is she talking about!  The door is slammed with some anger because it is dawning on you that  there is a connection between this and what is going on with Target, Inc. and Wells Fargo.

This story has throw backs to Pontius Pilate all throughout.  He called for the bowl of water to wash his hands and symbolically wash away his guilt at what will be the unbelievably brutal killing of Jesus.  This story is a modern, institutional adaptation of that old, old story which many in this society are experiencing.  The symbols of the bowl of water with rag and soap have changed to new 21st century symbols of the same thing.

The realtor reappears in a few weeks.  This time, after you have called and written to Wells Fargo Shareowner Services a lot – gotten angry – done lots to get your stock sold so you can move on with your financial life..  None of which was effective, even almost two years later.  The Wells Fargo Shareowner Services door is solidly closed.  Their refusal to sell your stock is clearly a refusal and violates everything on which this society is built.  Wall Street could not function without the guarantee that you could convert your stock into cash within days.  So they are violating the very foundation of our economic system and with impunity.  Even contacting the SEC hasn’t helped.

You do get one foot in the door – so you think.  Wells Fargo has appointed someone to investigate this stock problem.  Who?  Someone from their mortgage department.  And who holds your mortgage?  Wells Fargo!

It doesn’t dawn on you what that means.  Your assumption is that this is the company process and the person appointed is probably someone they have trained and designated to head such investigations.  Dumb dumb – she is with the mortgage department.  What you discover in the process is that she does not have access to the people she needs to talk to, nor the records she needs to access to do an investigation.  So why was she chosen to head this investigation?  You gave her the right to access your records with Wells Fargo Shareowner Services Company in a three way telephone call with someone from Wells Fargo Shareowner Services Department, but months later you are told that was only for that particular telephone conversation.  When the three of you ended that telephone call,  so did that sham of an investigation.  Interestingly, you were not told that during the conversation – a conversation which was the initiation of the investigation.  In fact, you were led to believe the opposite – very specifically, that she would continue the investigation and get back to you with her findings.

After this “investigation” came to an end with no results and the mortgage person told you she was in mortgages and had no access to other departments – and you asked why was she assigned to head this “investigation” given those circumstances and you didn’t get a straight answer you realize you have been played. Played to your detriment and the company’s need to buy time to make sure you were becoming more and more financially destabilized.

And then comes the real estate agent again.  This time with an elderly Chinese gentleman to assure you there is a “buyer” who is willing to pay cash.  And, oh by the way, you are really too old to be saddled with owning such a large house.  And, oh by the way, we are willing to pay you half of what the house is worth.  And oh, by the way, you should be thrilled because that will allow you a very comfortable old age – you won’t have to work anymore. And for reasons that made no sense – her last ‘oh, by the way’ was did you get out for a walk today, you need to do that, you know.  With my mouth hanging open wide enough for bugs to fly in from the shock of this – she went on to say they understand we were having troubles with our mortgage and they came to help.  And where did they get this information – you ask?  And they answered – Wells Fargo!  So you throw them off your porch – because you were astute enough not to let them into your house.  And you thank God you were raised to control your anger and not revert to the most primitive kind of violence because this certainly is the point at which that would have happened if your family had not been so tenacious about raising someone who is -on the surface, at least – non-violent.

So the game continues.

Next up – Herb Chambers Automobile Sales and Honda Financial Services.

Because you have been put into this cash flow problem – you have to move assets around to have enough to make up the short fall from the money you expected from selling stock you legitimately own and have been assured, from all the federal statues, the traditions, the law which set in place the Securities and Exchange Commission,  that you would be able to sell and settle in four business days.  This is now over one and a half years later and even with constant telephone calls, letters, emails, the stock has not been sold.

In the process, your car note falls behind by 52 days because you were foolish enough to continue to expect the stock to be sold so you did not transfer assets needed to get all the things done you planned to do before this mess started.  You pay the car note by wiring money into the bank account of the Honda Financial Services Corporation and go about your business.  You have, after all, transferred the assets you need.  You will be fine for months – although your business will not have the money it needs to grow according to the plans you set for it.  You will have to take a little from here and there to make up for the personal financial problems you would have otherwise.  So you do that.

And  behold, arriving at your door is this huge truck to repossess your car.  Surely they are mistaken.  You owe nothing and the total balance due  on the car note is very miniscule.  Well, therein lies the problem.  If it were a huge car note owing – no problem and no one would bother you.  You would have been charged a $5 late fee, which you would pay happily because you know that was owed, but instead, here comes this truck to take away a car on which you have no monies overdue.

The truck driver is not fazed and does nothing because you have threatened him with theft, criminal trespass, fraud and a whole lot more.  So he steps away and waits for his bosses to tell him what to do.  He is clear that he is not going to risk being arrested.

As all of this happens you reflect back on a couple people you worked with in the past to help them save their cars from such a problem.  The total pictures of what they were going through was lost on you because you still had some trust in the system and how it worked.  The greed had not surfaced for you in all of its brilliant magnificence.  Even as you see this truck trying to take your car, the greed intrinsic in this still has not manifest itself.  This just seems like a bureaucratic mistake.

As this all plays out for you, the realization hits that the people you tried to help and who lost their cars did so because they became too afraid of the car company trying to repossess their cars.  And, they never lost the expectation that there was human decency and some honesty in all of this and no one would do to them what ultimately happened.  They were so wrong.

What all of the people you helped with their car problems had in common was a very small amount owing on their car and they were over 30 days past due on their current payment.  You gave them their note payment, which they made to the company, but they still lost their car even though when they lost it, their car payments were up to date.  How could that be?  It was a mystery then, but your faith in the system didn’t lead you to tear it apart to see what was wrong.  It was all revealed, however, with this experience.  The evil is overwhelming.  You can see it as it dances around the people with whom you are dealing – it is all bright and gold and shining unbelievably.  And you thought only good was bright and shining and full of light.  The society that helped raise you taught you that evil was all dark and suspicious and, well like Africans and here you were looking at evil bright and gold and shining unbelievably.  What a break through moment!

What was the difference between you and the people you tried to help?  You were calling the police to have this repossession guy arrested.  The people you moved to help were too afraid to do that and instead put their faith in the goodness of the company.  So they lost their cars.  And what happened to their cars?  With the balance owing on their car being under $3,000 and they having used the money you gave them to bring their monthly payments up to date and the car company demanding that they pay twice that because since they were behind and a repossession notice had been issued, their cars could not be released until the payment they had already made was made again. The fact that the car company had received their cash and put it in their bank account, but still demanded that the amount due – even though it had been paid – be paid again either by bringing cash to the company or sending cash via Western Union’s “Quick Collect” – those car owners were lost.  They didn’t have the car payment they were behind – we gave them that.  Once that was paid they were too ashamed to come back to us to ask for their car payment twice – they thought we would not understand and would think they were trying to game us.

So, being too ashamed to come back to us to ask for their car payment twice or to tell us what happened – something they didn’t understand and didn’t know how to explain, they just kept quiet and lost their cars.  Apparently, Honda Financial Services depended upon that and knew this was the normal outcome.

Once the car payment was made a second time – according to Honda Financial Services employees, – the cash received by them  would be refunded, their car would be released and everybody would be happy.  Since we had given folks the money to make the car payment, they clearly did not have money to pay it again and were too embarrassed to come back to us for more money so they lost their cars.  That part of the story we didn’t know and didn’t understand until now.

What happened to the cars?  With less than a $3,000 balance due – the cars were sold in the used car lot for over $10,000 and who made out with a substantial profit?  Not the original owner, because title was transferred away from them before the sale was made so they had no right to pay Honda what was due and keep the balance.

So, with no money to buy another car and with the car company having wrecked their credit – the car company experiences yet another dividend.   The people so negatively affected could buy another car from the same company – but they would have to pay very high interest and make two monthly payments – one for the downpayment, and one for the regular payment for the car.  A couple people we tried to help did that and nearly killed themselves in the process.  We lost track of them so we don’t know how that story ended.

But I am getting ahead of myself in this story.

What we experienced from Herb Chambers and Honda Financial Services was a demand for a second payment of the monthly car payment even though there was no payment due.  They tried shame; threats; acknowledged they had received the monies sent to them; that the account was not delinquent on any level; but they still demanded the amount due be paid again and even though they had received the cash which brought the account up to date, we would have to either bring them cash for that exact amount or send them a Western Union “Quick Collect” amount.  After they received that Western Union money or we brought them cash to their company, they would take the cash they had already received out of their account and, in due time, send it to us  as a refund.   They claimed this demand was legal.  It was amazing!  What they were demanding was totally illegal and as of today we have not received a refund nor has the second payment been credited to our account.  WOW!

We wanted an explanation as to why they could not keep the money already in their account – why they wanted us to bring them cash so they then could take the cash previously sent to them and received by them out of their account and send it to us as a refund.  It is the demand which made the people we helped lose their cars.  The expectation was that you would not be able to pay this second amount demanded because you had been late on the first payment.  So they were foaming at the mouth looking at a car that they could sell and make a very substantial profit on,for their company, showing they had done an excellent job.

They became so helpful at this point.  They would see to it that the car was returned as soon as we notified them this second payment had been made and they would do everything possible to make sure we would not have to wait a moment longer than necessary for the return of the car.  When we brought them this second payment they would contact the repossession company and have our car released immediately.  What they didn’t realize was that they didn’t have possession of the car throughout all of this because the car repossession guy had gone home without the car.  He got the message, did not want to be arrested, because he knew what he was doing was illegal.

We sent the second amount via Western Union because we wanted to follow this through to the end.  When we called to verify that the monies had been sent and received by them, according to Western Union, we couldn’t help but notice the disappointment and surprise in the voice of the person from Honda Financial Services with whom we spoke.

When we realized what the people we were helping had gone through and some were still going through,  it was beyond belief. It began to dawn on us the extent of  the fraud involved and how intimidating the people were who were practiced at this.  How many people have so suffered.  Most people have buckled under this kind of thing.  We tend to be mean and angry so we call out the police, the attorneys, the relevant governmental departments and agencies involved and everyone we know, to attack.

What makes this possible and why is it so widespread?  SHAME!  People are ashamed even when they are being ripped off

We have no shame.  We are outraged.  And unfortunately for those trying to rip us off, we were not broke – we simply had a transfer of assets problem and in that situation many are caught unawares that this is what happens to people who are actually in a financial bind.  Everything they have is taken away.  Stripped away with great glee.  It is amazing to see how unprincipled, how greedy, how many lies people will tell to strip another person of their money and assets.

What is even more alarming – the people doing the stripping don’t benefit from what they have ‘stolen’.  The company for which they work benefits.  And in that company, the people at the top of those companies benefit.  Those doing the stripping are simply allowed to keep their jobs and, in the evenings, to sit by the fireplace to watch the flames that will consume them when they die – and they will not even have had the benefits of the ill-gotten gains they made possible for others to enjoy.  A very few others, but others indeed.

This has been an experience we are going to push to the limits because this needs to stop.  We realize we won’t be able to stop it – its like using a small wooden fence to stop a tsunami, but we are not going to sit by and let that tsunami swamp everything without trying to stop it.

This experience did enlighten us as to why so many people are willing to overlook Trump’s negatives and support him.  They are looking for relief from an extremely oppressive system.  If you dig into the past of many Trump supporters you will find a situation much more dire than the one I have described to you because at some point, someone in their family has probably been made destitute by these machinations.

As for us – we are supporting Hillary Clinton.  Our more sane side has won and we realize that what we described will only be made worse by someone like Donald Trump coming into office.  We are sure he has had enough experience to know how to take advantage.  What those supporting the “Don” don’t realize is that he has done some of what I described above.  Not the same particulars, but in his own corporate way he has made many people destitute – many others have lost their businesses because of his greed and on and on and on.  But those who have gone through this kind of thing are looking for a way out and someone to come to their aid and they see that someone as Donald Trump.

Clear your eyes people.  He will only make a bad scene worse.

We don’t know where the solution lies, but we are going to continue to move the needle and do what we can to expose and stop these scams – thefts – destructions – horriblenesses of this system out of control.  It is time for that 1% to get real and do something to level the playing field instead of stealing all the turf and exposing the swamp underneath.

Wasn’t it an emperor of Russia who had a wonderful life until the peasants revolted?  And the king of France? And many others, who were so busy ripping off their citizens that they didn’t realize they had gone too far until the ax fell on their heads wielded by the very citizens whose economic and financial lives they were destroying.

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

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

Ghanaian and Columbian Skin Care

September 21st, 2016

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2016

We have not had enough time to test this out on several people over a long period of time, however, for a few days on about 3 people it has had stunning results.

A previous blog was about Pineapple Skins for Skin care – an old Ghanaian treatment.  In conversation over breakfast about that blog we had a Columbian guest who made an addition to that recipe.  So, of course, we had to try it and love the results.

In addition to the steam treatment with Pineapple Skins – add Papaya skins to the water before steaming and let the Papaya Skins and the Pineapple Skins simmer together until steam rises.  Follow the same method – put a large towel over your head and your head over the steaming pot of water and skins and let the steam from all of the ingredients get into your skin for several minutes. You can do this however you are most comfortable – either over the stove with the water simmering or move the pot off the stove and put it on a nearby counter.  If you want to continue and the steam dies down -put the pot back on the stove until the steam comes up again and continue.  We chose five minutes because that was all we could handle standing over a steaming pot.  Someone else was able to try 10 minutes.  The results were spectacular.  I would think once or twice a week – depending upon your age and the condition of your skin – would work beautifully.  Once-a-week if you are young and your skin shows no damage from age or the over use of cosmetics.  Twice a week if you are aging and your skin needs work.

Follow this facial steam bath with lots of splashes of cold water on your face and pat dry with a soft towel.

Then – if you are retiring for the night – use nothing.  If you are getting ready for the day out and about, use a capsule of Vitamin A on your skin to add to the results from the Pineapple and Papaya Skin Steam treatment.  Actually, I found it takes four capsules – clipped and used one at a time to cover my face.  I use 25,000 IU’s.  Whatever you use would be up to your judgment.  I use this immediately upon rising in the morning and after at least 20 minutes with the Vitamin A on my face I rinse it again with cold splashes of water, pat dry and I am ready for work.  If I am staying home, I let the Vitamin A stay until I remember to splash the cold water.  Using the Vitamin A, including on my eyelids and under my eyes can cause a bit of a discomfort while it is on.  I ignore it and keep going.  The result seems to be an increase in my ability to see without the use of glasses.  That might be genetic, but everyone before me had glasses by the time they were 55.  I am way past that and only need glasses when I read a lot.  During the day, I can refresh my face with more splashes of cold water when I go to the bathroom for other reasons.  That is such a rejuvenation and a perk-me-up that my face instantly responds and looks as good as it looked with the first splash in the morning.

If you try this, we would appreciate your feedback as to how it worked for you.

We chose the Vitamin A after the facial steam bath because we read the Bettina Network Blog – a long time ago – about the Vitamin A – dry milk – Vitamin E treatment which is also fantastic so we only need to use the steam – probably once a week – maybe not even.

I don’t even use powder on my face anymore.  If I have a grease spot or the weather has caused a particularly greasy face, I simply use powdered milk.  It is super fantastic.

God bless Alicia Keyes.  Hope others will join her in her dedication to no cosmetics.  She simply appears the way God made her and she looks like a fresh flower in the middle of plastic replications.  I hope she is ready for the attacks of jealousy which are definitely coming from this stance.  So many people so very threatened.

Isn’t it great what sharing can do?  The need to be better than has caused us to have to live with cancer, obesity, heart disease, diabetes and all the rest because we can’t give credit to possible cures and improvements that other societies use on a regular basis.  We must be the continuing Colonials whose way is the only and the best way.  I think this collaboration between Ghanaian and Columbian is what it is all about.

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

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

Pineapple Skins for Health and Beauty

September 15th, 2016

A suggestion we picked up from a guest from Ghana on using the skins of a pineapple to help cure a fever.

This is something Hillary Clinton could have used to deal with the fever which apparently caused her trouble at the 9/11 Memorial.  A little steam infused with pineapple skins before going to the Memorial might have eliminated her problems.

Take the skins of two pineapples – I chose two for very arbitrary reasons.  We had fresh organic pineapple for breakfast and used two pineapples.

Fill a large soup pot with water, add the skins from the two pineapples and bring to a boil.

Let this boil for about 20 minutes.

Put your face over the soup pot while it is boiling and make a tent over your head with a large towel to trap the steam.  Let the steam get into your pores.  Keep your head covered with the tent and over the pot for about five minutes.

This should take care of your fever and in addition, your face will look fantastic as the nutrients from the pineapple skin get into your skin as you let the steam get into your pores.

It will also give you a great hairdo.  The steam will make your hair look as though it has increased four fold.

This is an old recipe from Ghana to cure the fever.  We added the side beauty treatment to remove wrinkles, produce a beautiful gleam to your skin and do a little feeding of the skin in the process.

We could take this one step further and suggest you use the pineapple skins to make tea.  It is done the same way. However, for tea, we suggest you take it to the next level and add fresh organic ginger before boiling the pineapple skins – skin and slice the ginger,  add it to the pineapple skins with either honey, maple syrup or organic turbinado sugar to taste.  You will have a wonderful tea to put in glass jars until you want to either heat and serve this as a proper tea – or drink it cold.  Either way it is exceptionally good.

Let us know, via email, your experience with this.

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

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

 

How To Make Groundnut (Peanut) Soup – Ghanaian Style

September 7th, 2016

by: Abubakari A. Adams                                                                                                                                                                                                  copyright for Abu by Bettina Network

Groundnut Soup:

This is basically what I consider one of the best soups favored by most people in Ghana, and some West African countries. In Ghana some people in fact would not mind eating this soup for Lunch and Supper. The main reason this soup is call groundnut (peanut) soup is obviously because groundnut is the most dominant ingredient in the soup. The ground nut is made in the form of paste just like peanut butter but not as smooth as the commercial peanut butter and definitely with no sugar added or any of the other ingredients that come with this commercial peanut butter, – just the  ground nut (the ground peanuts). The soup normally comes in different flavors which is mostly defined by the type of protein supplement used in the soup (type of meat, fish, snails, crab etc.)

Ingredients:

The quantity of ingredients in this recipe can be increased or reduced based on how thick or light you like your soup to be, or how much spice you like in your food.

* Groundnut (Peanut); no sugar just the peanuts (roasted)

* 4 relatively large Tomato

* Hot pepper (use your as much as you think you can handle I would normally use like 1 part pepper to 5 part tomato; 1:5 ratio)

* One large sized Onion

* Garlic (optional)

* Medium sized Ginger

* Salt

* 1 medium sized Garden egg (egg-plant)

* Fish (fresh fish will do but preferably smoked fish gives a better turn out), Meat (fresh meat of choice, most people in Ghana use goat meat) or Crabs.                                                It is okay to use a combination of all three types, unless there are people who don’t eat one or more of the trio.

Tools:

Need at least two good sized saucepans

Wooden spoon or spatula

Chopping board

Knife

Blender

2 sources of fire (number is optional, saves cooking time)

Other tools that you may deem necessary

Process:

There are different processes in cooking the groundnut soup.   The process outlined is my preferred method.

*  First,  do the most obvious of all cooking practice, (clean all the ingredients as needed)

*  Put meat, fish or crab into reasonable sized saucepan;  add water until it is the same level with the meat, fish or crab; add salt as needed and then put the whole tomatoes, ginger, garlic, garden eggs (egg plant) and pepper on top of the meat, fish or crab.

*  Cook the combination under slightly high temperature until the vegetable gets softer or gets cooked.

*  Take out all the vegetable (tomatoes, onions, garlics, pepper, ginger and egg-plant) and blend them all together into a light puree.

*  Put a reasonable-sized saucepan on medium heat and put the groundnut paste (peanut butter) in the saucepan.  Stir, while gradually adding a little water until the color turns dark brown and/or you start to see it getting oily.

                   NOTE; each time you add water,  stir until the water is completely absorbed before adding more water.

*  Once the paste gets to what I term as the brown stage or the oil zone,  add the vegetable puree to the groundnut paste and keep stirring until you get an almost homogeneous mixture.

*  Add the partly cooked meat, fish or crab and the stock, stir and add hot water to get the desired thickness.

* Allow to boil on medium heat until the oil starts to surface.   This stage will take about 15 to 20 min. on average.

* Check to make sure the salt is okay and add more if necessary. NOTE:  you can always add more salt after it is served

Ed. Note:

Abu is a tremendous young man from Ghana.  His area of expertise is Mechanical Engineering and he has a diploma from MIT’s Fab Academy in Digital Fabrication (How to Make Almost Anything).  Abu speaks six languages and since he is a world traveler and stays in different countries for extended periods of time, he will probably constantly add other languages to this repertoire.  One of Abu’s passions is the FabLab.  He has worked with others to set up several and will be on his way to South Africa for the next year to help set up yet another FabLab.  Cooking is something Abu loves to do and we hope he will share more of his recipes with Bettina Network’s Blog.  As he travels the world and picks up different ways of cooking and sometimes how different cultures use the same ingredients, we know he will not forget us and will send recipes, history and updates on how the FabLabs are developing around the world.

He is a very valued member of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community.

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

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

Medjool Date Cake for Breakfast!

August 24th, 2016

This is a fantastic breakfast cake – which makes it a very special ending to good food, great conversation and learning serendipitously from those at a Bettina Network Table.

We share it with you and hope you enjoy this as much as we do.  We do, however, have to give credit where it is due.  This recipe was taken from an episode of “Martha Bakes”.  A show we record so we don’t miss an episode and from which we have found some mundane and some exceptional recipes.

What we use as a breakfast cake has a long English history.  It is called, by some, a Sticky Toffee Pudding.

Our recipe does not stick to the traditional recipe for a Sticky Toffee Pudding so we will call it a fantastic breakfast cake.  Many cultures have such a cake – not always with dates, but sticking holes in the cake and pouring a sauce over it is a way of baking that countries over the ages have shared.

Needless to say – all of the ingredients should be Organic.  The sugar we find best is Organic Turbinado Sugar.  The flour we like best is Organic Whole Wheat Pastry Flour.  The milk, eggs and all the rest must absolutely be organic.  We use extra large organic eggs.  For the salt – Himalayan Salt.  And the pots should be glass for this dish.  Preferably Corning Glass Pots with the blue cornflower on the side.  You probably can’t find them in the stores, but they are turning up with great frequency in estate sales.  Most have never been used.  Before you buy one check to make sure the inside still has that shiny look and has not been destroyed by the wrong kind of cleaning products.

Process – Steps to a Great Cake

Use one cup boiling or very hot water  poured over Medjool Dates to which you add 1 teaspoon baking soda.  Set this aside and let soften.

(The recipe from “Martha Bakes” says to put one cup coffee over dates.  We prefer the hot water.)

Mix the dry ingredients together –

2 teaspoon baking powder – 1 1/2 cup flour – 1/2 teaspoon salt

In an electric mixer –

beat together until light and fluffy –  one stick butter and one cup sugar

To the butter and sugar add two eggs, one at a time beating well after each addition. Here again, some people use 4 eggs.  We like the results that two eggs provide.

Add

date mixture, flour mixture, egg mixture and vanilla (if used)

Mix until moistened, but take care not to overmix. 

Spread batter in a pan

The pan can be either round or square

Before putting the batter into the pan, spread the pan with butter all over the insides of the pan.  This keeps the cake from sticking to the pan.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 55 to 65 minutes.

When done, remove the cake from the oven; let it cool in the pan; using a toothpick or other similar gadget poke holes all over the cake.

Pour warm toffee sauce over cake and let it absorb for at least 20 minutes before serving.

Toffee Sauce

Combine in a medium saucepan –

preferably a Corning pot with the blue cornflowers on the side:

Two sticks butter – one cup heavy cream – one cup organic turbinado sugar – 1/4 teaspoon salt

Put over low heat –

stirring, until sugar has dissolved.

Let simmer over medium heat for about 8 to 12 minutes before pouring this mixture over the Toffee Pudding.

This is what gives it the name – Sticky Toffee Pudding.

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

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

A Sample of Bettina Network’s Lessons and Requirements!

August 2nd, 2016

Bettina Network, inc. has guidelines and lessons for those who join the Network with a talent, body of knowledge, wisdom, art, craft, etc that they want to share.

To give you an idea as to what these small lessons and requirements are, we share the following:

“We understand all of the marketing behind stainless steel and other kinds of utensils for eating.  However —-

In Bettina Network, inc. as a Host Family and Hedge School Facilitator we require that you use silver utensils when serving any kind of food.  If you are using  stainless steel and/or other materials for your knives, forks, spoons and other utensils which go in the mouth, please change to silver as soon as possible.  They are a bit more expensive so you can take six weeks into joining the Network to change the utensils you use.  To be efficient in the use of your resources, you might want to sell your current utensils at an estate sale, or yard sale, etc. to find the money to replace them with silver, if necessary.

Why?  Because silver has anti-bacterial properties and we want to make sure guests and those coming to learn are as protected as possible.

Silver plate or sterling silver are equally fine.”

Some of our homes have moved even further and adopted the old German habit of using silver pots and pans for cooking.  That is the ultimate, but instead – if you can’t afford or don’t understand how to use these silver pots and pans and are a bit squeamish – you might try converting to a combination of iron and glass pots and pans.  Give the idea of silver pots and pans a bit of time and you won’t want to use anything else.  Corning used to make a fantastic set of pots with the blue cornflower on the side which is great either for cooking on top of the stove or for using in the oven for baking.  Cast iron – which you will need to  oil (season) after each use, is excellent also.  Please don’t oil these iron pots with Olive Oil.  It goes rancid quickly and defeats the purpose.  You might try Peanut Oil – Coconut Oil – or etc.  Stable oils which you use to cook foods when the temperature is higher than ‘slightly warm’.

If you have questions or comments, call or send us an email.  If you want your email published as a blog, please so indicate.

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

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

A Response to the Melania Trump speech

July 19th, 2016

I’ve read how Melanie Trump – who said the speech she wrote was her own doing and she read over it quickly, one time – feels about this campaign and what she thinks is her coming role as First Lady.  It was pretty bad.  I didn’t know it was plagiarized, but I did know something was wrong because it just didn’t track with everything else written about the Trumps.  The style was not their style.

What utterly shocked me, however, was the comment in the Bettina Blog about Donald Trump’s daughter having married a man who is an Orthodox Jew and having converted to Orthodox Judaism because of her marriage.

That alone would not have been shocking.  What I realize I hadn’t even thought about was the connection between Trump’s daughters Orthodox Judaism and Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim rants and announcements about how he will close the U. S. borders to Muslims and all those other comments.

Thank you!  I read your blog because it does not pull back on the truth.  If we know the facts, we can draw our own conclusions.  I am totally unhappy with the mainstream media.  They seem to need to be nice, rather than truthful.  Tell a part of the truth and let their readers guess the rest.

Keep up what you are doing.  I especially like the fact that you don’t take sides you have written some blogs on all sides.  As soon as I think I have you guys pegged, you come out with something completely opposite to what I have assumed.  That is awesome.

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

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

Melania Trump’s Convention Speech

July 19th, 2016

An amazing speech!  It had nothing to do with anything except a hollywood script writer planning a movie of pure fiction.

We watched her come on stage and the greeting by her husband was anything but warm.  It looked like – don’t touch me, I am made up and dressed and don’t want you to mess me up.  The rest of the evening and speech followed that pattern.

What most amazed us were some of the things she said with a somewhat straight face.  For example:  She emphasized the need to “pass those lessons on to the many generations to follow, because we want our children in this nation to know that the only limit to your achievements is the strength of your dreams and the willingness to work for them.”

We wondered if her life after she left Communist Slovenia and an upbringing which had nothing to do with a democratic election where you supposedly run on your achievements, ability to accomplish, and more, was an example of what we want to pass down to our children as ‘our’ morals and values. Certainly, the way she ‘achieved’ her goals says more about her and the man she married than anything else.  It sets their moral values right up front and center for all to see.

She talked about her mother’s elegance instilling in her a love for fashion, etc.  During the time she was on her own and had to make her own way, this is how she did it – acting out her morals and values and love for ‘fashion’.  That is not how the fashion models we know live their lives and make their money.  She was Donald Trump’s ‘hostess’ on his plane before they married.  We hear it took her all of two years, after leaving Slovenia to become a billionaire’s mistress, girl friend, fiancé.  We don’t know what to call that relationship before their marriage.  It was certainly a time of Donald Trump exploiting a woman’s body and the woman allowing him to do that because her value of herself is on her body.  An example for our daughters’ to follow?

Half naked with a box full of jewels on a plane represents what kind of moral value? Selling one's body?

Half naked with a box full of jewels on a plane represents what kind of moral value? Selling one’s body and showing the results of that sale?

 

Supporting your husband and his need to get support from the NRA?  Passing these values on to our children?  Whatever values her parents gave her – when she had to make it on her own she apparently made it by using her body.  – and was it for sale to the highest bidder?  And once that happened she could become the volunteer, the person giving to others, working for the needy because that supported her husbands goals and put the family in a better light?  Seems to us that those values of her husband have been passed on to his children – especially with a son who, rumor has it, only dated models and in the end married one?  Is that teaching your children to value people because of their work, accomplishments, because they are human? Or is that valuing women for what their bodies can do for you?  Doesn’t bode well for women’s issues.  If her husband is elected president, she would be the first First Lady who earned her kept so blatantly using her body.

 

Supporting her husbands' support for the NRA? Showing how women can give their support to the NRA for their husbands benefit?

Supporting her husbands’ support for the NRA? Showing how women can give their support to the NRA for their husbands benefit?

When a campaign has stolen the theme of a previous campaign and was not able to come up with its own campaign theme - is that how he will be President of the United States? Nothing will be sacred. Whatever Trump needs, he will take from whoever, wherever, for whatever reason he needs to take from others? Like the way his campaign has taken the lives of Blacks by stirring up old prejudices and giving strength to groups who are extreme racists? And extreme religious bigots? Did his daughter marrying an Orthodox Jew account for his spreading such hatred around the country in his campaign speeches and in other ways for Muslims? Is he using divide and conquer to become president? Use the old animosities and pit one group against another. So far he has been able to widen the gap between White and Black; Jew and Muslim; and who knows what groups are next as fodder for his power grab?

When a campaign has stolen the theme of a previous campaign and was not able to come up with its own campaign theme – is that how he will be President of the United States? Nothing will be sacred. Whatever Trump needs, he will take from whoever, wherever, for whatever reason he needs to take from others? Like the way his campaign has taken the lives of Blacks by stirring up old prejudices and giving strength to groups who are extreme racists? And extreme religious bigots? Did his daughter marrying an Orthodox Jew account for his spreading such hatred around the country in his campaign speeches and in other ways for Muslims? Is he using divide and conquer to become president? Use the old animosities and pit one group against another. So far he has been able to widen the gap between White and Black; Jew and Muslim; and who knows what groups are next as fodder for his power grab?

These are the values to pass on to your children? Use your body to get what you want? Melania talked about her interest in fashion. We know several models, none of whom earned their money using their bodies in this way! It did help her get a rich husband, however, who puts no value on women except to satisfy his ego and prurient needs.

These are the values to pass on to your children? Use your body to get what you want? Melania talked about her interest in fashion. We know several models, none of whom earned their money using their bodies in this way! It did help her get a rich husband, however, who puts no value on women except to satisfy his ego and prurient needs.

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The traditional photo of a nude woman on a bear rug is acted out here and destroys everything woman - trying to reach equality in this system based on their brains, accomplishments, etc. instead of the old standard of their body and how they are willing to use their bodies to succeed. These are the lessons Melania Trump brings to young women and young men. This was certainly her way to success and even today, dressed in more clothes which cost a small fortune, her message is - you are an appendage to "your man" and you live your life through him and his life, never on your own standing on your own two feet. Independence is not in the cards.

The traditional photo of a nude woman on a bear rug is acted out here and destroys everything woman – trying to reach equality in this system based on their brains, accomplishments, etc. instead of the old standard of their body and how they are willing to use their bodies to succeed. These are the lessons Melania Trump brings to young women and young men. This was certainly her way to success and even today, dressed in more clothes which cost a small fortune, her message is – you are an appendage to “your man” and you live your life through him and his life, never on your own standing on your own two feet. Independence is not in the cards.

 

I can’t believe the Republican Party has stooped so low.  It certainly gives a different meaning to their fight against abortion and all their other fights against the equality for women.  This will bring the country back pre-1950’s.  This is how women advertise who are looking to earn a living in prostitution.  If they make it big and find that wealthy male to support them – fine.  If not, they will be prostitutes for life.

These photos came from GQ magazine.  We put their entire article on Facebook if you are interested in their narrative which went along with the pictures they published.  We found more, but these, we felt, gets the message across.  Know who you are voting for.  You can excuse anything if you want power badly enough.  But don’t you think a little honesty, morals, looking at the choices a person makes when they are on their own tells more than anything else about their morals?  It certainly says a lot about Donald Trump and what he is interested in from a woman.

I am sure there were none of the Religious Right in the audience at the Republican Convention.  Having seen years of what they are about this would be the ultimate hypocrisy.  An act equivalent to Pontius Pilate’s washing his hands in that bowl.  If there were members of the Religious Right on the floor and out in the country supporting this Trump campaign, they have gone further than Pontius Pilate did because they have not only agreed to turn Hillary Clinton (a devout Christian all of her life – working for justice, equality and for all of us) over to the most scurrilous comments and ugliest campaign in United States history, because they have agreed to help in that effort and are giving their time and money to achieve that goal.  At least Pontius Pilate only washed his hands in that bowl and and then he walked away.

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

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

 

A Solution to Police Violence

July 8th, 2016

“When you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind.”  That is truth and a quote from some fount of wisdom.

Back in the 1970’s when I lived in Minneapolis I was on the board of the Minneapolis Urban Coalition.  We worked hard to attempt to establish Civilian Review Boards which would work with the police to oversee their work.  Boards where complaints against the police would be brought and worked through by the Civilian Review Board.

The people who were intransigently against these review boards were none other than the police.

WHY?  Because they had sympathy for one another.  They wanted to be ‘reviewed’ by their peers.  They talked about no one else knowing the problems on the job and what they went through and etc.  In reality, what they were saying is that when they saw a brother cop in trouble because he lost his temper; let his biases dictate his actions; messed up in ways that said his emotions had taken over his job, they understood that and if that happened to them – which, because of the stress and tensions of the job it very well could –  they wanted to be brought before a group of their peers who knew that – there, but for the grace of God – goes I.

The talks, negotiations, pleadings, and more fell on deaf ears because no one wanted civilians poking around where the police had messed up or where they appeared to have messed up.

Would the installation of Civilian Review Boards have prevented these recent killings?  And prevented many of the problems which have surfaced over the decades?  I won’t pretend to read the tea leaves, but common sense, experience, knowledge, sensitivity to the human condition says – yes, the establishment of civilian review boards would have gone a long way to entirely preventing the problems we have experienced and seen or they would have gone a long way to mitigating what happens when human beings whose emotions get out of control when they are in the power seat against other human beings and just needed to reach inches for a gun – a taser – a night stick wouldn’t.

The time has come to put this ‘brotherhood” behind and to open the door, windows, passageways which are now blocked to Civilian Review Boards.  Every city needs to immediately establish such and the Civilian Review Boards so established should have real power.  The power to investigate and also to protect whistle blowers in police departments who are experiencing problems because they have brought something that they feel needs fixing to the management and more.

That will make the police forces around this country more effective, not less.  That will give them credibility and a better and stronger trust level in many communities – especially if community members can approach the Civilian Review Board with their complaints, observations, etc. to attempt to make the police force what it is supposed to be.  Perfection  does not exist.  Moving closer to working together brings an understanding and clarity of vision which does not now exist.

Without the killings in Dallas, we were headed for some real heat during this summer.  Anger, grief, bigotry, and more were being unleashed by police across the country and it was only a question of time before all of that anger, grief, bigotry and more unleashed itself and resulted in the killing of police.  A line has now been crossed and there will be no going back until some basic changes are made.  We are, after all, only human and we reach our limits quickly.

Media talkers in the cat bird seat on television are already beginning to say things like “this just doesn’t feel right”.  And so begins the attempt to blame what happened in Dallas on Middle Eastern terrorists.  Or some other group of terrorists who inserted themselves into this community business.  All we need now, to create an unimaginable horror, are great pronouncements from the Don.  Hopefully, this bloody upheaval is not the beginning of his campaign to get himself elected President.  He has certainly set the stage for this to happen.

There didn’t need to be Middle Eastern terrorists intervening.  I know how I felt all day yesterday.  I could not stop crying.  If I had not had such an upbringing with Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the Christ, God and all of God’s angels threatening me if I took a life I could have easily taken knives and cut police into little pieces, throwing the pieces to the flesh eating fish and felt good about it.

Middle Eastern terrorists may have their issues, but African Americans raised in the deep South during Jim Crow have anger issues which run deep.  Creole women have tempers like none you have seen before and all of that unleashed can reek unbelievable havoc. We didn’t need “foreign immigrants” to act on our behalf.

What is amazing about those comments on television that the media were spewing out this morning is that in the middle of talking about a racially charged issue they introduced their own racism.  The print running at the bottom of the screen could have read – Blacks don’t have the guts, the know how, the drive to do what those shooters did in Dallas – so this just doesn’t ‘feel’ right.  There must be some other explanation other than shootings by the protest groups.

It is way past the time to come to our senses and establish panels to air racial grievances, but we need to take three huge steps back and do exactly that.  And not panels staffed with Blacks and other minorities who the prevailing White Male power structure knows will “be nice.”  We need to establish truth panels, where there are no penalties for speaking truth and some kind of recompense for those who experienced the negative side of the truth being spoken.  We need truth panels where people in the community can go to air their past grievances with the police and a panel which seeks to bring justice out of that truth telling.  Justice, not judgment.

It is also crucially important – even more than truth panels – to establish Civilian Review Boards.

Our normal method of operating is back away from the truth.  It isn’t “nice”.  We have to smile and make nice.  We have to pretend that all is well because we don’t want to offend anyone.  When we reach that point we need to ask ourselves –  how can the truth offend?

It is time to offend.  To offend in love.  It is kind and good.   Truth helps us grow into that space where our lives can be full of unconditional love.

I go to a Church, where in some corners of the building, love and sex are equated.  That is not the kind of love I am talking about and I think most of you know the difference.

I was raised to speak truth to power.  It wasn’t until my old age that I began to realize power doesn’t want to hear truth and will destroy you for attempting to speak the truth because power judges harshly and will eliminate you for being anything other than gracious to it, turning a blind eye to its transgressions.  Power will destroy you and blame you for the destruction.

Love doesn’t judge, bur love does live in the light of truth and forces us to live in that same bright, beautiful light.  Would that all of us could sit in unconditional love for just minutes a day.  Our lives would totally change as we became accustomed to something which  answers our insecurities, our racism, our sexism, our classism, all of the needs we have to be better than; to be more powerful than; to be in the spotlight most of the time; to be prettier than; to have more of the material things in life than; to have someone who we can make the scapegoat for all of our missteps and negative things we do; on whom we can dump everything and then force over the cliff.  Love is what a good life is all about.  Not happiness, not joy, not any of the things we normally seek.  With love everything else comes to order.

Let’s get busy.  The work is huge and the time is short. Make those contacts – set up those Civilian Review Boards – get those Truth Panels going, soonest.  Even if you have to be the shadow where you can’t gain access to be an integral part of, – try it.  Even if you have to set up Truth Panels on street corners – do it.

South Africans had great experience with Truth and Reconciliation Panels.  Are we too arrogant to be that humble?  Does our side have to be right and the others wrong?  We are intelligent human beings.  Notice I didn’t write – educated, because formal, institutional education may be a part of the problem.  Intelligent, sensitive to others, needing to reach out, feeling uncomfortable where you are cast as better than.  Get all of that together and get to work.

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

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

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

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

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


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