An editorial just because « Bettina Network's Blog

Archive for the ‘An editorial just because’ Category

« Older Entries

The Boston Marathon Bombing and its Aftermath

Saturday, April 20th, 2013

by: Marceline Donaldson

The hunt for the “terrorists” is over and we are all the poorer for it.  Democracy and the United Sates Constitution went out the window and we justified it by claiming all in the name of “safety”.  I guess that makes the real question, would you rather be free or safe?

.

Lets put what happened in Boston in a more historical context.  John King blew the horn at the starting gate – it was dark skinned males.  And does that have a historical context?  Does anyone remember the Carol Stuart case when the clarion call was to “get” those n…..rs.  This time, enough people backed him down that there had to be other “suspects” and those turned out to be two young boys – white.  Legal aliens, maybe next time they will call white and illegal aliens.  And things like innocent until proven guilty went out the window and today the miranda rights are out the window and so will a proper and thorough criminal investigation be completely compromised.  Try to get a just trial out of this fiasco and farce.

.

Rumors fanned the flames and contradictory reporting went unnoticed as we were whipped up into a fear frenzy by a careless and irresponsible media who were apparently taking orders from the law enforcement people.  The idea of an independent media was certainly one of the first things lacking when they started fanning the flames by many repeats of the picture and many assurances of the guilt of the men in the picture..
.
.

The FBI and assorted other enforcement agencies pushed the fear by releasing the pictures of two young men who were immediately declared guilty.  We need an independent investigation of what happened in Boston and soon.  This was the Carol Stuart case on steroids – especially when a Congressman declared that suspect #2 – let’s not use names – we can dehumanize them by calling them titles – had come to this country to kill people.  Put in the context of reality – suspect #2 was 8 years old when he came to this country.  Not likely his motives were to kill people especially since it was probably not his decision to come, but his parents.

.

If you have not been targeted you might feel pretty smug and safe – I was targeted.  It was not pleasant to see police cars come along and block off the streets in your neighborhood leaving you with the uncontrovertible view that you are the target.  As it turned out – they were looking for a grey honda odyssey and one was parked in my driveway.  They had a license plate number which didn’t even come close to mine, but there they were blocking off every ‘escape’ route and what if I had gone outside for any reason while they were doing this?  My neighbor across the street did go out looking for her son.  One policeman yelled at her to get back into her house – she tried to explain her son had gone out for coffee and hadn’t come back and she was going to look for him.  The policeman didn’t care he just continued to yell at her to go back into her house.  What was the great threat?  My car, parked in my driveway.  When I saw that and realized I had been targeted I remember Martin Luther King’s comments – if good people do nothing, they may come for me in the morning, but they will be back for you in the afternoon.

.

I was really jolted when I saw the last press conference with the police head of this travesty announcing everything was going back to ‘normal’ and in the process with his zeal and high on testosterone treated Governor DeVal Patrick in a really disrespectful way.  As Patrick tried to say something he was cut off and that policeman ignored him and kept the microphone.  Whatever Patrick had to say was shoved aside.

.

There were many conflicting rumors and rumors of rumors going around the entire day – not going around from informal conversation with your friends and relatives, but going around on international television being reported as fact.  You really knew it was a problemmatical statement being made when you heard – as John King said – I have to be very careful about what I say here.  King’s racism has been on display at other times, but he has neither been called on it nor has he accepted responsibility for his racist attitudes and taken steps to change them.
.
So many other points come into play – the thermal image of the suspect by the helicopter which was apparently not acted upon; the black mercedes which was taken by the suspect #2 from the body shop where he brought it – a friends’ car to be fixed – and then there was a charaterization of the car they were driving around in as having been ‘car jacked.’  The ‘confession’ came from that supposed car jacking third hand, but reported as fact and the reason to justify the continuation of this abuse of the U. S. Constitution.
.
The FBI releasing photos of suspects which were not definitive, but conjectured as suspects knowing that releasing such to the public in an already inflamed situation would only make things worse and prevent the justice department from doing a proper investigation, etc.  They had face recognition and other means to continue their investigation, present their facts to a judge to get an arrest warrant, etc.  Takes too long?  We can go vigilante and claim it was really good police work?  This was not justice, this was vengeance and it didn’t matter who paid as long as the public felt ‘safe’ and trusting of its law enforcement people and raised them up as heroes after this day long travesty of justice.
.
The Carol Stuart case – for those of you who don’t remember it – was the law enforcement people in Boston releasing what they called a ‘fact’, that Carol Stuart was killed by a young black man and the Boston police went on quite a rampage stopping, searching, mal-treating young black men until Carol Stuart’s brother-in-law confessed that it was really her white husband who killed her with his help after the fact. One committed suicide, the other went to jail.
.
Was this day long horror story any different?  Are we safer and its okay that we are far less free?  Does it matter that we have been subjected to the kind of police state which has happened in many societies around the globe – those that we condemn?  Have we now taken our place beside them in what was a bright light shining on the difference between what we profess verbally and what we practice, in fact?
.
Will something even bigger – in terms of the rejection of our U. S. Constitution – come along again in Boston where it will be even worse than Carol Stuart and the Marathon Bombing?
.
We have no idea if they were the bombers – if they were did they act alone – if not who are other possible suspects – etc.  All the kind of questions which could have been answered from a properly conducted criminal investigation.  What were we so afraid of that we can not follow our own supposed values and beliefs or are those beliefs and ethics only there to be paraded out when it is convenient for everyone and makes us look good and better than other countries?
.
This re-creation of a police state in the United States certainly needs to be thoroughly investigated by an independent body.
.

TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

To Be Added to the Bettina Network Email List, Sign-Up on the bettina-network.com web site

USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK YOUR BED & BREAKFAST!  1-800-347-9166 inside U.S. or 617-497-9166 from wherever.

 

Share

Tags: , ,
Posted in An editorial just because, Uncategorized | Comments Off

Vote Today – My Opinion, et tu?

Tuesday, November 6th, 2012

By:  Marceline Donaldson, 2012

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marceline Donaldson

TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

To Be Added to the Bettina Network Email List, Sign-Up on the bettina-network.com web site

USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK YOUR BED & BREAKFAST! 
1-800-347-9166 inside U.S. or 617-497-9166 from wherever.

Share

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in An editorial just because, Making Connections | Comments Off

In Memory of Roger Fisher

Tuesday, August 28th, 2012

by:  Marceline Donaldson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

To Be Added to the Bettina Network Email List, Sign-Up on the bettina-network.com web site

USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK YOUR BED & BREAKFAST! 
1-800-347-9166 inside U.S. or 617-497-9166 from wherever

 

Share

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in An editorial just because, Bettina Network Info, Breakfast Table Talk, Growing Old, Historical Support, Making Connections, Memorials, Preserving Family History and Stories | Comments Off

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

Tuesday, July 31st, 2012

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

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

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

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

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

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

Share

Tags:
Posted in An editorial just because, Guest comments, Making Connections | Comments Off

Herman Cain and the Racial Discussion

Wednesday, October 12th, 2011

copyright Bettina Network, inc./Marceline Donaldson 2011

We think that if  Herman Cain wins the Republican nomination for president he will be a strong proponent in favor of bringing back an updated and strengthened Affirmative Action program; he will be against the institutional racism practiced by large corporations; and he will take a strong stance against racism and sexism.

We know this because Mr. Cain  says he is a Christian and he knows he would not have the job or resumé he has today, if others had not sacrificed so he could walk through an easier and economically and financially more profitable life.Mr. Herman Cain knows  the many opportunities presented to him and which he took advantage of to promote his career, would not have been there for him -but for- strong civil rights actions attempting to address the problems caused by the racism experienced by African Americans and sexism experienced by women.

A Christian man would not take what he can and throw soot and ashes into the faces of those who provided for him the life he now enjoys.  Indeed, he is a bright, intelligent and very capable individual, but there were many such African Americans who were just as bright, if not brighter; just as capable, if not more so; and just as motivated, if not more so; who did not have what he enjoyed because those huge, difficult-to- open doors were not opened for them the way those doors were standing open when Mr. Cain came calling.

A National Education Association (NEA) convention in the mid 1970′s held in Minneapolis, Minnesota threatened support of a civil rights claim against Pillsbury that would have precluded their products in school districts across the country.  This action was requested by a group of people supporting the law suit for race and sex discrimination against the Pillsbury Company which continued until the mid-1980′s.  Mr. Herman Cain was a direct beneficiary of that law suit and that non-monetary agreement the NEA made with Pillsbury to avoid a boycott of Pillsbury products by the NEA.  In that agreement, Pillsbury agreed to hire African Americans in prominent managerial positions if the NEA did not pass the boycott at its convention.

A part of the law suit was against Burger King – then a subsidiary of the Pillsbury Company.  Working in personnel, because I was considered “uniquely” qualified to work with Affirmative Action, I discovered that Burger King had a practice of putting up potential managerial employees of Burger King in a small Florida hotel – which only did business in Florida and therefore was not subject to the federal civil rights laws of the day.  That hotel had a policy – it did not accept African American guests.  Burger King had no record of having placed any interviewee in any other hotel.  And they did not hire anyone in a managerial position who they did not bring to Florida to be interviewed.  In other words, Burger King had no African Americans in managerial positions and they had clearly never interviewed nor hired African Americans in managerial positions and just as clearly did not intend to do so.  Their continued relationship with the hotel said that clearly.

Given the threat of a boycott against the company by the NEA and possible other such actions by other groups in the near future, Pillsbury stepped up its hiring of African Americans and women,  especially in Vice Presidential positions.  They even put one woman on the Board of Directors.

They originally hired an African American as a Vice President in a staff position i.e. Community Relations (with the minority community).  Even he was hired as a consequence of the law suit against the Pillsbury Company.

Mr. Cain walked into a situation which was very different from one he would have walked into and been rejected from without the Affirmative Action programs in place in this country; without  the law suit; the strong move by civil rights organizations to bring in relevant organizations to work with Pillsbury to clean up its act and stop maintaining a very racist stance against African Americans in managerial positions.  Without that, it is doubtful Mr. Cain would have the Vita he now enjoys sending around to the press.

In fact, if you look closely at Mr. Cain’s Vita you will see the other company which promoted his abilities, experience and education was Coca Cola. A company known for its attempts over the years to be more open to diversity in its employees.  In the 1970′s  and beyond, one could say it was unique in the way it hired African Americans.  And wasn’t that Andrew Young in the wings at Coca Cola?

We are certain Mr. Cain earned his credentials and then some, subsequent to having those doors opened for him by others who sacrificed much to do exactly that and we are equally certain Mr. Cain would want to make sure those doors are kept opened.  He would not want to take the unarticulated stance covertly stated –  ”I’ve got mine, now let me  slam that door in the faces of my African American brothers and sisters coming behind me.  The weakness some African Americans and other minorities succumb to in such situations is the character flaw showing up of needing to be “different”, the “only one”, “I am great because I made it and others like me didn’t – how fantastic must I be.”  That arrogance that develops around that is huge and ugly.

Mr. Cain has talked clealry and eloquently about his Christianity.  That Christianity would not allow him to do that.  He could not be a Christian and take his life, at the expense of other unacknowledged and unrepaid sacrifices and then take stances to make African Americans and women sweat blood for opportunities they will  never have because of the racism and sexism he avoided.  Mr. Cain was in the right place at the right time, able and equipped to take advantage of someone else’s sacrifice.  Given that and given his Christian commitment, Mr. Cain clearly has a responsibility to address the racism and sexism in the workplace today.. He just as clearly has a stronger responsibility than most, to acknowledge it and put in place programs to continue to address this evil and in Christian terms – this sin!

We can’t conceive anyone seeking a job as responsible and as powerful as this one – able to make substantial basic changes in the world – not only the U. S. – who would take the advantages he enjoyed at the expense of other peoples lives and then turn around to deny those coming behind him because it would be to his personal advantage to deny the existence of racism and sexism.  It would be to his personal advantage to ignore the debt he owes to many who provided a way for him to exercise his God given talents.

Let us hear from you Mr. Cain as to how you are going to move these issues onto the Republican platform if you are its nominee for President of the United States.  As a committed Christian, who has testified to his Christianity in the public place you can do no less!

Marceline Donaldson

Republican

Sacrificial Civil Rights Plaintiff in many issues and over decades

Who was a witness to the above and was one of the instruments who helped to bring about the economic and financial life Mr. Herman Cain now enjoys!

 

AN ADDENDUM TO THE ABOVE AFTER MR. CAIN HAS SPOKEN!

Well so much for that!  This was written last week when I could not conceive of a man who owed his career to Affirmative Action and the actions taken against racism and sexism by people like me and others would respond the way he has.  He has taken advantage and been a heavy weight on our backs.  Now he has decided to dig in his spurs and make the heavy weight, bloody.  How un-Chritian, arrogant, ugly and vicious of Mr. Cain.   I hope one day he sees himself as God now sees him.

And in answer to his complaint that African Americans are brain washed by the Democratic Party.  Here is one who is not! Who is hanging in there in this Republican Party, just barely and who has people like Herman Cain to thank for making me look wistfully at my African American brothers and sisters in the Democratic Party.

Look at who we get in the Republican Party.  Selfish – Self centered – using racism to get ahead, using sexism to get ahead – talking out of both sides of his mouth – unable to see, respond to, or thank those on whose shoulders he stands.  You are beginning to look like a really miserable human being.  Your arrogance is showing unashamedly.  You may not have been a politician, but you have come out full-blown and as bad as, if not worse than those around you, Mr. Cain. – what a miserable human being you are.  You got your job through Affirmative Action and the work of civil rights groups who intervened and opened a path for you to walk.  You now are telling young people and others they need to work for what they get and if they don’t have its because they haven’t gotten out to get a job.  Isn’t that amazing.  Without the help you received you could have worked your rear end off you would never have gotten the jobs you have had; no matter how much you wanted it or worked for it you would not have succeeded the way you have now – not because you didn’t try, but because the society would not open to give African Americans a chance.  Such hypocrisy, Mr. Cain.  Such viciousness – such a crock!

One thing to remember – as a Christian – you may not pay back what you owe on this earth, but there is eternity awaiting you.

TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email info@bettina-network.com
TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com
USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK YOUR ACCOMMODATIONS – bed & breakfast and others! 
1-800-347-9166 inside U.S. or 617-497-9166 from wherever!

Share

Posted in An editorial just because, Making Connections | Comments Off

The Trek from Home to School 2011

Thursday, September 1st, 2011

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2011

“It is that time of year when the exodus starts – from home to school; from what is known culturally, socially, economically, food-wise and more to something new.  It is the Exodus from, not the biblical-type Exodus to.  For some of us that biblical Exodus will never happen.  For the lucky few, that biblical-type Exodus back will be a life-fulfilling time. Having resided in those hallowed halls, the biblical-type Exodus brings a handful back home.

For others, – the unsuspecting, the innocent, the thoughtless, – friends are left behind;  relatives are left behind; old institutions which formed a comfort level for most of us are left behind and even our identities are shed and strip-searched.  Everything is ripe for forming new attachments, new loyalties, new cultural mores, food habits, clothes styles, friends, and we attach ourselves to new institutions. Most poignantly we adopt new identities without even being aware of that process happening.  We feel the pain of the change, but because this is all such an integral part of the society in which we live and because this has all been pictured to us in ways which remove our defenses and understandings, we simply feel the discomfort, the frustration, the confusion that comes from putting in place our new identities.  At one time in history these many would have been called the strivers.  They are the ones who will succeed beyond their own and anyone else’s expectations because they have that something which brought them out of their own to this new territory without incident, question or immediate guilt.

And yes, what arrives for all in this process is the guilt.  A new kind of guilt which will neither surface nor grow for at least a decade.  A slowly developing guilt from actions that, to those of us in this process – in our late teens to mid-twenties – has nothing to do with guilt, but is simply life moving ahead.

In this re-ordering process, the new identity is what will be most troublesome over the next several decades.  If we are not upper-middle class Northern European we will re-order our family relationships drastically.  To move ahead in this ’new’ society we must cut off and keep family at arms length.  They will expose our background, our class, the economic base from which we’ve come and more.  The exceptions who are used to disprove the rule, are allowed to move ahead and keep family and there are not many of them.  They can discretely keep some family around.  The others have to move away from family.  Find fault with them, keep them at arms length because whatever is wrong is their fault so they will not walk into this beautiful – though painful – place with us.”

Ed. Note:  This is a small excerpt from a letter we received from a former guest.  He had been part of a conversation around the breakfast table in one of the bed & breakfast homes in the Bettina Network, inc. when parents were bringing their children to college and he was doing the same thing.  The conversation from a couple older parents, who are now grandparents was about how they missed their children who were “busy”, had very little time to ‘come home’ and from whom they heard very seldom.

Over the years he has stayed in other homes in the Bettina Network, inc., was a part of conversations with parents who had effectively been ignored by their children for decades and he was beginning to experience the same thing.

We have not put the entire letter in this blog because it is very painful to read and revealed a lot of information personal to the guest.  We don’t know your experience, but over the years this certainly parallels many conversations we’ve had with parents as their children left home for school and the years that followed cut them almost totally out of their children and grandchildren’s lives.

The end of his letter follows:

“What is most painful about having packed up my children several years ago – one at a time – and brought them to college – and then to watch them grow away from all of us is the thought that this is what I did to my parents.  Without even a thought; not realizing the pain it must have caused them.  I became part of the prior generation – leaving home – establishing a very successful career – and looking back today on my childhood and family, which I miss terribly, but can’t replace or even belatedly go back to visit because they are all dead.  I did everything I was raised to do – finished college, established a business and now am living comfortably several steps above where my family lived financially and class-wise.  But in the end, when I look back, what I wanted and expected was to finish college, go home and move ahead with my life in the context of family – my family.  To have grown and maintained my original identity was my goal, although not put in those terms as a young person.  That was taken away from me without either my knowledge or consent.  How did that happen?  Is this how a multi-national economy is formed, grown, expanded?  Was I fodder for that process and are my children the new fodder needed for this to continue?  I don’t think I even like the new identity I put in its place.”

We hope it is not your experience, but we add it to Bettina’s Blog because the guest sent it for the blog and because we think it is illuminating to life today.  Your comments are welcome.

TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email info@bettina-network.com
TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com
USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK YOUR ACCOMMODATIONS! 
1-800-347-9166 inside U.S. or 617-497-9166 from wherever!

Share

Posted in An editorial just because, Breakfast Table Talk, Guest comments, Making Connections | Comments Off

An Editorial from an Upset Editor

Thursday, August 4th, 2011

GOOGLE is a very irresponsible company.  Do you know they don’t have any customer service for anybody – unless you know someone who works there who will risk their job by taking your problem to someplace it needs to be addressed and most of us don’t have that.

Our blog was a mess for weeks and we spent hours-days-weeks trying to get it out of the ether back to where it could be accessed.

So now the only Bettina’s Blog you can access via Google search is a part of the blog which dates back from 2010.  How or why they separated our blog into this really one part and ignored the rest is something I can’t address or solve and can’t find anyone in Google.  I think everyone who works there must be a computer – no real live human beings are in evidence anyplace unless you want to spend money and get into Google AdWords, etc.  All of a sudden, live people are on the telephone.  what is that about?

I used to hear how humane and forward looking the two founders were.  Well either this was a myth or the company is so out of their control that it has become one of the worst invaders of our privacy and the worst ignorers of dealing with their problems I have ever come across – and I’ve seen and experienced some really awful corporations.

We are beginning to understand why Google has come to the attention of so many anti-trust bodies.  They are totally trying to put every kind of agency out of business by presenting to the public a way around using an agency. By the time John and Jan Q. Public realize this is a come-on and a really bad way of doing business, their money is gone, they are out of business and Goggle has marginalized those who looked towards them and away from agencies that were looking out for their best interest.

I could go on for pages about the problems we’ve had with Google.

suffice it to say, we were afraid to put blogs out there for several months because of the way Google opened us up to damage by those looking to wreck havoc.  Now we’ve decided to just go on, ignore the possible problems and hope there is a fix for them someplace – Google isn’t interested in fixed anything.  You can post your problems on a public board and hope someone responds and helps you out of a mess. That doesn’t happen very often.

If your problem is of a very delicate nature that could hurt you if it gets out before a fix gets put in place you are flat out of luck.

How have we ever allowed a company which is violating everything we hold dear and close in this country to not only survive but to thrive?

If this keeps up there will be a new company in Bettina’s Hall of Shame and Bettina’s Box of Shame.

Share

Posted in An editorial just because | Comments Off

Bettina Network’s Policies

Friday, July 29th, 2011

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2011

Having been in business over 20 years in bed & breakfast, we have learned much about this industry.

Our policies are in place because of the experiences we have had over the years and they have served us well.

We are not the fastest on the block, but we are concerned, considerate, safe and constantly changing to help create a better world – to be super concerned about preserving what we have as a world community and making sure our homes are all working towards being more efficient, more considerate of others, more considerate of the environment and knowledgeable about the health and happiness of our guests.

Every home in the Bettina Network is one we know well and whose family/owners we know well because someone from the Bettina Network spends the night in each home before we accept that home into the Bettina Network and before we take reservations for guests to stay in that home. From the office, we are in constant communication with our host families, making sure we get even better acquainted with them to know their strong and weak points and to be able to help them move to ever higher levels in this corporation.

We also are concerned about who the guests are who stay in a Bettina home.  We want to make sure both the guest and the Bettina Host Families are well cared for and cared about.  We are a community of people with a common interest in bed & breakfast as a way to travel – we all work together to make this a  great experience for everyone.  We have huge historic mansions, regular suburban houses, apartments, etc. to give you as large a choice as possible, but all thoroughly checked out.

We do everything we can do to minimize any possible problems.  We are not an unknown and unknowing entity, in place to make reservations for whoever comes or to take into the Bettina Network whichever property presents itself for inclusion in the Bettina Network.  Yes, we are a business and yes, we are in business to make a profit, but yes also we are concerned about how we make that profit.  We do not want it to be at the expense of others or to anyone’s detriment.  Our community grows larger each day and grows in depth, wisdom and knowledge – but especially in inclusiveness, caring, eco-consciousness and more.

That may be a slower, more expensive way to work, but it has been our choice and it has served us and our guests very well over the years.

You can arrive at a Bettina Home and know the guests who will be sharing that home with you are wonderful, interesting and concerned/considerate people.  If there is no host family present, you can be assured the Bettina Home is still well looked after and in great shape when you arrive.

You can arrive at a Bettina Home and know it has been checked and constantly re-checked so that you arrive to no surprises and it is the place described to you over the telephone or through the mail or through email.  We are very accurate in our descriptions and quality control is at the top of our agenda as we think through who would be great to stay in our homes and – unfortunately, we do have to make the call that some would not be great guests.  And yes, we also have to make the call that not everyone who calls us would make a great Bettina Host family and so we sometimes have to decline a family that wants to join the Bettina Network.

Bettina guests help us keep Bettina Homes at the top of the industry because they also are asked to keep us apprised of what their stay was like and we share with Bettina Host Families both the positive and negative feed back we get.  If, and that is very seldom, we get negative feed back it is responded to immediately and changes are made promptly.  Guests have sent us letters telling us how fantastic are the homes in which they stayed.  That is the result of our constant vigilence over the Bettina Network.

That is what we work for – that is what keeps us going – and that will continue to be our method of operating.  We hope you approve and support us as we move forward in this business.

We must apologize for the problems we have had with our technology – our Bettina’s Blog was lost for some reason – floating around in the ether until we could figure out how to bring it back.  Our listing on Google has been lost for reasons we don’t understand.  And we have experienced other upheavals which are totally unnecessary in this business world.  It is about competition and being raised up or lowered down because of your business policies and practices and how they affect this world.  It is not about one business trying to move out another because they don’t want competition and want the industry to themselves.  We are tenacious, persistent and very fair and good at what we do and we will continue to hold that space and that place at the top of this industry.

TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email info@bettina-network.com
TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com
USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK YOUR ACCOMMODATIONS! 
1-800-347-9166 inside U.S. or 617-497-9166 from wherever!
Share

Posted in An editorial just because, Bettina Network Info, Making Connections | Comments Off

Bettina’s Blog is Back

Monday, July 11th, 2011

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2011

What a trial by fire.  It is quite challenging if you were not raised with the concepts current in the computer programming world.  You have to learn them through trial and error and it is excruciating.

Bettina’s Blog was flying around in the ‘ether’ or whatever the universe is called that contains lost internet sites and other miscellany of the internet world.  Trying to snag the blog and make it respond to your commands – like having Bettina’s Blog just a click away for you when you want to read the Blog, is not easy.

We changed servers and we must have looked pretty bad over the past few weeks.  Nothing worked!  Now that we are back in force, everything looks different and not as elegant as we thought it was before we went to IH “internet hell”.  

Funny how your eyes readjust.  Stop looking daily at your design and other work and the pink cloud, which is the stuff in which you wrap your own ideas, stops making things look better, pretttier, more elegant than they are.

So on to better things and greater blogs.

We have a few email requests to catch up to.  We haven’t ignored your emails, we have just taken a little frustrating, demoralizing, humiliating detour.  We are back now and changes should come quickly as we use our major new learning in the IT area.  For those of you who are still in the pre-IT age, that means Internet Technology (I think!)

Your exhausted editor!

TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email info@bettina-network.com
TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com
USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK YOUR ACCOMMODATIONS! 
1-800-347-9166 inside U.S. or 617-497-9166 from wherever!

Share

Posted in An editorial just because | Comments Off

Estate Sales and the Environment!

Thursday, June 9th, 2011

Copyright 2011 The Bettina Network, inc.

It is no secret that the Bettina Network is expanding into estate sales/auctions/etc.  It is one of the things that just about every Bettina Host Family enjoys and uses to maximize the profit from their bed & breakfast, to help the environment and to enjoy a day out going from one sale to the other “kibbitzing”.

As we gave some thought and discussion to this phenomena we realized that we have not been to a department store, hardware store, shopping mall, etc for quite a long time.  The only place we shop, other than estate sales, is the grocery store and we generally only buy food at the grocery stores because things like aluminum foil, bags, paper products, etc. even clothes, shoes and some toiletries can always be found in a house sale for very little money.

The last sale we went to was full of hand crocheted pot holders, dish towels, place mats, and an exquisite hand embroidered table cloth.  Over $700 in the stores, but $50 at the house sale.  Someone’s grandmother probably spent a couple years making the table cloth and it was hardly used – kept for special occasions – except special occasions for us turns out to be breakfasts and we really use those table cloths and other table accoutrements.

We had been given a pot holder as a gift not long ago along with an oven mitt by friends of ours who were very excited about the new materials on the market.  I put a hand crocheted pot holder and this new, red, greasy looking but not greasy feeling pot holder side by side and started to research the two on the computer.  What I discovered was the new red pot holder was made from petroleum products and the hand crocheted pot holder was grown and spun from cotton.  What a difference!!!  Why go to the trouble of trying to drive less to save gas and do all the other things we are being encouraged to do to limit the amount of oil we use when new products are constantly coming on the market which are made form petroleum.  Products for which we have perfectly acceptable materials out of which they have been made for generations.

Even products that our parents and grandparents used without thinking for cuts, burns, etc. are made of petroleum – ie Vaseline ‘Petroleum’ Jelly.  What is wrong with using aloe very gel or juice or the entire plant?  It is one that can be put on a cut or burn or bruise with good results and you can drink a glass of it with or without water to double the affect.

I am sure you and I could go down the list and find many products to eliminate so we don’t overwhelm our bodies and environment with oil products and used the real things instead.  What a new, clean way to live.

We needed paint this week – and found the exact color we needed at a house sale; I have several very elegent designer dresses from a house sale; a much needed comfortable chair for one of our bedrooms at a yard sale and many, many pillows.

How do you deal with cleaning the things you buy?  We throw the pillows in the washing machine on ‘sanitize’ and then into the drier and they all come out beautiful.  We cleaned the chair with an upholstery and rug cleaner and on top of that put the pillows on the chair into the drier on ‘sanitize’ and we were off to put the money we saved under our mattresses:)

Now which bed & breakfast are we talking about?  And are you going to strip the beds and look under every mattress from now on when you stay at a Bettina Home to see if you can find which one is being used as a bank?

Send us your ideas as to how to live a life without all of the oil, petroleum, and other horrible products which create health problems for us in the future – and – how to find and use those natural products which are still on the market, although for most you will have to go to house and estate sales, especially if you want to find real cottong (which was grown in a field full of sunshine) or real silk which was spun by the butterflies, etc.


TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email info@bettina-network.com



TO LEARN MORE www.bettina-network.com
USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK YOUR ACCOMMODATIONS!
1-800-347-9166 inside U.S. or 617-497-9166 outside the U.S.
Share

Posted in An editorial just because, Health, Making Connections, Shopping | Comments Off

« Older Entries