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An Incredible Snack – Bettina Style

Tuesday, May 28th, 2013

copyright 2013 Bettina Network, inc.

We discovered an unbelievable snack as we roamed the country looking for families/individuals wanting to use their houses for bed & breakfast.

It is basically popcorn, but such popcorn should be the food of the gods.

First – in a saucepan, preferably glass i.e. A Corning pot – put one cup organic turbinado sugar and one cup water with a little piece of organic ginger root.  Bring this to a boil and let it summer until you have reached 240 degrees on a candy thermometer.  Don’t stir this – even when you first put in the water and sugar just let it heat up and bubble, it does not need you to do anything to it, especially stirring.

Second – in a hot air popcorn popper, put the requisite amount of organic unpopped corn and plug it in. Let the popcorn popper work until almost all of the popcorn is popped.  If you don’t have a hot air popcorn popper use a kettle popper or whatever you have.  We use the hot air popcorn popper because it does not take any oil to pop.  Hot air does the trick.

Third – let the syrup cook a bit and then carefully pour the sugar syrup over the popcorn.

Fourth – Let this cool

Fifth – melt organic chocolate and/or cacao either in a double boiler or carefully in a glass pot on top of the stove.  If you use just the pot and not a double boiler, don’t leave the chocolate while it is melting.  Someone else who tried this put equal amounts of chocolate and organic heavy cream letting the chocolate melt and stirring until the two were well mixed.  That might be an option for you, we have not tried this way of melting and adding chocolate to the popcorn.

Sixth – This is best done with semi-sweet chocolate – we used semi-sweet organic chocolate chips and threw in about 1/3 organic peanut butter chips – just because we were getting carried away with ourselves.

Seventh – Once the chocolate is melted – let it cool a bit and very carefully sprinkle this over your popcorn – which is now covered with the sugar syrup and has cooled to become hardened.  The chocolate is the second layer and once it cools and hardens again your popcorn is ready to eat.

It is best eaten lukewarm.  Don’t expect to have any left.  We demolished  a huge amount in minutes and more had to be made.

Eighth – this is good with or without the organic peanut butter chips.  The piece of ginger root which you put into the pot with the sugar and water gives a wonderful under taste, which many people will not be able to identify because we are not accustomed to the taste of real, organic ginger root.  It is a powerfully hot ingredient.  Not temperature hot, but spicy hot.  Using just a small piece will not bring up the spicy heat, but will give a nice taste to the popcorn.

Let us know how you liked this dish.

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Gluten Problems??????????

Thursday, March 7th, 2013

copyright 2013 Bettina Network, inc. for Marceline Donaldson

Many years ago I worked for The Pillsbury Company – for a brief time – with a long following law suit – which is the stuff of legend around my neighborhood. I offer that fact to you in the interest of full disclosure.

One, of the many things that upset me, happened when I was moved to International Marketing with one of my responsibilities being over the Silos.  It wasn’t something I actually did, it was an old hangover from another time, but the job description was never amended.

In the process of this tenure, I received a telephone call from the real manager of the Silos, the one who had been at Pillsbury for many years and who did the day to day managing of the Silos.  He informed me there was an infestation of bugs in the Silos and asked what he should do about it.

My immediate response was – throw out the flour in the Silos – you can’t sell flour to people which is or has been full of bugs.

He thanked me and hung-up.

Shortly thereafter my boss came along and said “Marceline, we can’t throw out the flour.  He wasn’t calling to actually get input from you on what to do, he has been doing this job for many years and knew what to do.  With your new job description he needs your signature and go ahead to proceed.”

Well, what did that mean!

It means his procedure, set up by who knows, was to spray the flour in the Silos with pesticides to kill the bugs.

Being confused, I asked my boss how did they get the pesticides out of the flour and how did they make the flour clean again from bug feces, etc.

He told me they didn’t.   The FDA said the pesticides were not enough to negatively affect human health and by the time the flour was packaged and reached the grocery store shelves no one ever questioned what those little black specs were or where they came from.

Being really mind blown, I checked around the industry and discovered that was common practice and why did I have a problem with it?  It was normal – everybody did it – and given that fact, they wouldn’t do such if it was problematical or would cause the public health problems.

Well, I didn’t sign off on it – the job description was finally adjusted and we all settled down to a very uncomfortable co-existence.

From that time onward, whenever I go to the store for flour I buy organic whole wheat or organic some other kind of flour whichever has minimum processing of the flour.  That has been my practice since that time in early 1970.  And given the fact that I bake quite a bit, it is possible to make extremely delicious breads, cakes, etc. using only organic whole wheat flour.  All those recipes and comments from Chefs which say you have to add White Flour or your baking won’t come out right are a lot of baloney.  Most recipes, which call for White overly processed flour translate on a one to one basis – they were probably translated from the organic whole wheat lightly milled flour to what we have today. – who said “Without a knowledge of history, we are really seriously handicapped in the way we live.”

We have had several people for breakfast lately who’ve said they don’t eat wheat because their doctor said they were ‘sensitive’.  They didn’t have celiac disease – full blown- according to them, but their ‘sensitivity’ to wheat made them – on their doctors’ advice – eliminate wheat from their diet.

It has occurred to me to question if they are ‘sensitive’ to wheat or if they are ‘sensitive’ to and/or ‘allergic’ to the chemicals used to debug the flour.

I’ve raised the issue, but this pesticide treatment of flour has been a closely guarded secret of the flour processing companies for decades.

There was not this ‘sensitivity’ to flour when I was growing up.  Its only recent that we are running into people who refuse to eat wheat because of it.

Since their doctors have no idea what’s in the wheat – they, I am sure, as well as everybody else  have no clue as to this treatment of wheat.  So, why would they test their patients for a sensitivity to the pesticides sprayed on the wheat before it is packed and shipped.  Why would they look at whether their patients are allergic to the bugs and bug droppings in the wheat when they don’t know that such exists.

It really should be investigate to determine its real affect on humans and investigated by scientists other than those related to the flour industry.

This is one of many stories I have about what happens to our flour.  We all need to be vigilant and on our toes about the food we eat, especially the food which has been processed.  The FDA doesn’t seem to have done such a great job.  But then, maybe I am confused as to whose interest they are protecting!

If you’ve stayed in our home you know some of the other stories about the wheat and the FDA – especially the strawberry story.  I won’t bore you with repeating them.

Good eating!!!  And stay responsible for your health and therefore your diet.  What you eat determines who you are and your present and future health.  Exercise is fine, but it is only about 10 percent of the equation – and – is it so highly touted to be the red herring to throw you off looking at the real problems.

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Health and Beauty Tips – Who Holds Truth?

Thursday, February 28th, 2013

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2013

We had a wonderful breakfast with a small group of ladies all over 80 and I am under 35.  It was not what I was used to, but I am going to change my lifestyle.  I learned a lot, laughed harder than I ever have in life, and have some new values to put in place.

I wanted to take notes to write a blog about this breakfast, but didn’t want to offend the ladies or look too commercial or whatever was going on with me.  I am new at this blog business – I can write, but how do you get the information without being obvious?

What I learned is that you can’t.

I kept running back and forth from the kitchen to the dining room and back, trying to make notes.  As really great things came up, I would run into the kitchen to add the discussion to my notebook.  I don’t know how reporters cope.  I wanted to be a part of the conversation, yet I also wanted to document it.

We did talk about everything.  On one of my trips to the kitchen, when I arrived back in the dining room, one of the women presented me with a pencil and paper and suggested I stay at the table and take my notes.  They didn’t mind, but my back and forth was maddening.  They were laughing uncontrollably and had been since I started these back and forths, but I didn’t realize they were laughing at me and my antics.

Relieved – what follows is that breakfast:

I loved the way one of the women – at 83 years old – had almost no wrinkles and more energy then I have ever had.  I sat next to her because I wanted to know her secrets.  She said she didn’t have any.  She just kept the lifestyle she had as a young person and didn’t take part in the food, cosmetic, housing revolution which she witnessed over her lifetime.  She thought it was all quite dangerous to one’s health.

She smelled of roses – and there was her first secret.  She used organic essential oil of roses and no perfume.  The oil was in her rinse water when washing her clothes and not on her skin when she got dressed.  I will probably never be able to pull that off because a quick trip to the internet and Yahoo-ing ‘Essential Oil of Rose” put me into a state of money shock.  Organic Essential Oil of Rose I didn’t even bother Yahoo-ing because I knew that would be even further out of my financial reach.

So what else could I copy?

None of the ladies used commercial cosmetics – no lipstick, no lotions, no makeup – like foundation, etc.  They took care of themselves out of their refrigerators and their cabinets.  I knew that was the coming thing – I didn’t know that was the past thing.  I knew my grandmother used stuff out of her kitchen, but I didn’t pay attention to what she was doing or using.

One lady used beta carotene capsules for lipstick and a little red for her face here and there.  She clipped a capsule of the beta carotene and used it on her finger.  I knew about that from an article on Bettina Network’s Blog about using beta carotene to color your hair, but hadn’t thought about it for lipstick.  She gave me a couple capsules and I tried it.  The color was a bit orange.  It looked great on me so I am a convert.  I don’t know if it would do well on everyone, but it is going to be my choice from now on.  I notice it changed colors as the day progressed and didn’t last all day, but then neither did the lipstick I wore.  I carried the lipstick in my pocket book and reapplied it during the day.  I don’t know how I can do that with beta carotene, but necessity is the mother of invention and this is all new to me so let’s see what happens.  It is worth the effort to get this down to a great new habit.

The comments and sharing I liked best were from the woman with almost no wrinkles and some 83 years old.  She did this “hot and cold” thing.  She splashed water on her face in the mornings when she woke and it was first warm to hot water and then very cold water.  When she took her shower in the morning, it was without soap – in fact, none of the ladies used soap or soap substitutes – water was all they used on their bodies.  She said she showered in the mornings,  first in a warm shower and while standing in the shower she gradually turned the water to cold – showered a few minutes under very cold water and then turned it back to warm again.

Her friend objected because she used this hot and cold water thing, but she got out of the shower after turning the water to cold.

Apparently, this was big when they were my age, which is when they got these beauty tips.  One read – and had her collection of Prevention Magazines  in her basement.  Hers are from the time before Prevention Magazine was sued and taken over by the Meds (their words, not mine).  They all used to read the magazine religiously, but cancelled their subscriptions after the law suit and it became, according to them –  ”an arm of the AMA.”  The hot and cold business was something either someone wrote in about or the magazine wrote an article on and it became big in their circle at the time.  Not many people they know today still adheres to the regime, but they do and they look fantastic.

My great-great grandmother used to do this – but that was because she didn’t have hot and cold water in her bathroom.  She lived well into her 90′s and looked great.  I don’t know why I didn’t follow her example – probably because I was quite young and not worried about health or beauty.  My mother clearly did not follow the family example and today one hears all kind of ugly comments made during many commercials about looking like, acting like, wearing clothes like your grandmother.  The one that comes to mind is “your grandmother’s jeans”.  I guess I was made for this breakfast conversation because I like Jeans that fit and don’t hang around my hips on their way to below my butt.  Isn’t there somewhere a history which says the Jeans being foisted on young people today are clothes that were worn in jail to let your fellow inmates know you were up for prostitution?  When we lose our history, we lose ourselves.

We acknowledge that it looks obscene when we see young men in the “ghetto” wearing pants which show the crack in their butts, but nothing is said when young white women wear the same jeans which show the crack in their butts.  That is considered high fashion.  As a young white woman, keep those butt-crack showing jeans and all those marketing promotions away from me.  I will look to my grandmother for advice, hints and more.

All of that – plus more – which would take me a book to write about – made me think about all the marketing that goes on around products that cost a fortune and deliver next to nothing.  I have been going along with their story and buying some of their products because the ads attracted me.  After using ”stuff”  for a few months and having nothing except buyers remorse.  I think before I do anything else I am going to look at the person recommending some kind of cosmetic to me to see if they use it and how they look as a result.  The people I look to will not be the 13 year olds who model these products –  I want to know what the 80 year olds are doing when they look fantastic, healthy and full of energy with few wrinkles. There is nothing holding truth like seeing results and I have not been getting any from the $300-$400/month I have been spending on cosmetics because I saw an add which made me think it was truth – and finding out it was clearly hype.

This was my first morning on my new regime.  I splashed my face with warm to hot water and then a lot of cold water before I had coffee.  A nice feeling – and I looked better than the person who usually straggles down for coffee early in the morning.

I also took my first hot/cold shower this morning.  After I finished my coffee I tried standing in the shower under warm water, gradually turning the temperature up to hot (but not too hot, I am no martyr for beauty) and then turning it all the way to cold.  It was an unusual experience.  It takes a little getting used to, but I thought of those women and how great they look.  I am going to slug it out until this is as normal to me as it is to them.  They are going to be my inspiration. And – the biggy – the cost is only of the water, which I would have to pay for anyway.

My first Bettina Network Blog!  Hey editors – you don’t have to copyright this under my name, its a gift.  My next blog, however, will be a different story.  Although, maybe I would like the term I just coined under copyright or whatever I need to do to claim it!!!!  I think Yahoo-ing will give Google a run for its money in the search world.  I love Marisa Meyer.

Ed Note:  The highlighting of “Yahoo-ing” was done by the editor. It was an interesting word and since our author saw it as her creation we thought we should give it a boost.

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

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A Tribute to The Rev. Patricia Riley Colenback (1931-2013)

Sunday, February 24th, 2013

taken from “Alla Bozarth-Campbell’s – From Womanpriest: A Personal Odyssey, Paulist Press 1978

Bakerwoman God

 
Bakerwoman God,
I am your living Bread.
Strong, brown, Bakerwoman God.
I am your low, soft, and being-shaped loaf.
 
I am your rising bread,
well-kneaded by some divine
and knotty pair of knuckles,
by your warm earth-hands.
I am bread well-kneaded.
 
Put me in fire, Bakerwoman God,
put me in your own bright fire.
I am warm, warm as you from fire.
I am white and gold, soft and hard,
brown and round.
I am so warm from fire.
 
Break me, Bakerwoman God!
I am broken under your caring Word.
Drop me in your special juice in pieces.
Drop me in your blood.
Drunken me in the great red flood.
Self-giving chalice swallow me.
My skin shines in the divine wine.
My face is cup-covered and I drown.
 
I fall up
in a red pool
in a gold world
where your warm
sunskin hand
is there to catch and hold me.
Bakerwoman God,
remake me.
 

And how many times, Pat,  did you say these words over others…………………..

                              “Give rest, O Christ, to your servant Pat with your saints, where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing, but life everlasting.”

 

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2013 The Jubilee Year

Friday, February 8th, 2013

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2013 for Marceline Donaldson

We declare the year 2013 to be the Year of the Jubilee and a holy, joyous, history making, sin forgiving year!

By whose authority? – by our own.  Isn’t that how such things happen!!!!

Generations from now, the historical cry will be reported and everyone will forget it was declared by one little person in a tiny corner of Massachusetts in danger of being crushed by Harvard University.

Why 2013? —————– Why not 2013!

The year Barack Hussein Obama was re-elected president of these United States. A man of African and Colonial American origins.  He not only models what African Americans can accomplish, he also models that ‘half-breeds’ can be brilliant, successful, achieve beyond everyone’s expectations and really – how can you tell his racial background from just meeting him?  Doesn’t his smile wipe all of your doubts away?

His election – his person – does not go through years of ancestors stolen from Africa and forcibly put into slavery.   He comes from the combination of the Africans who escaped being brought over as slaves and the very middle-class White Americans who brought some of his family/tribe/countrymen over to do their work for them – for free.  And, in spite of that ancestry he is just as nice and kind and smart and thoughtful and….as he can be.  The progeny of the original enemies in these United States – the original American oppressed and oppressors – those who stole the freedom of generations of human beings so they wouldn’t have to do their own menial work and those who were stolen and lived for generations outside their own country, culture, language, until they no longer could recognize from whence they had come.

This Jubilee Year, which we are declaring, also comes 50 year after Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement which broke out in this country and partially freed some of us from sitting behind signs on buses; drinking from water fountains which were never clean; going to the back door of restaurants and paying the same price for contaminated food handed to us out the back door which we then had to find a place to eat;  travelling and wondering just where we were going to sleep the night because hotels, motels, inns, were not welcoming and did not allow Blacks to register; going to inferior segregated schools; not being allowed into institutions of higher learning except for those established ‘for colored patrons only’ and on and on and on.

We are a step beyond slavery, but still not free!  A more qualified African American woman was passed over for Secretary of State in favor of a qualified, but less qualified White Male from a very Patrician American family – complete with trust fund, hundreds of millions of dollars and a phalanx of supporters in his chosen profession protecting him and making sure anyone threatening his path to his chosen goal was dutifully destroyed – or at the least – with reputation mangled.

With BHO’s election to the presidency we should proclaim this a great year of celebration. No, he is not perfect.  No, I don’t agree with all of his stands on things.  No, I suspect he has more than a little bit of sexism in his soul and it has popped out and will probably continue to do so.  No to a lot about BHO, but YES, I will shout and loudly proclaim this celebration and the debt we owe him for stepping out and moving all of us out of a less equal time.  If I knew about ram’s horns I would probably continuously bother all of my neighbors by playing several, all year.

This Jubilee Year, which we are proclaiming, is a year of unmitigated joy, but also a year of universal pardon for all of the sins of the past.  It is time to put slavery, its manifestations in today’s society, its ruination of the lives of some of my and your ancestors (be they White, Black, Green, Pink, Brown or Purple) in the past and look to the future which this year proclaims possible.  A future that is about all of us – that sees us working together to bring about a world free of the horribleness of the past.

In this Jubilee Year:

We need to call on our brothers and sisters to stop manufacturing foods and other processed goods which are harmful to us!

We need to call on our brothers and sisters to take global warming seriously and stop polluting the planet and to stop doing all the other things which are turning our living rooms into our toilets and our bodies into garbage disposals and composters at the expense of our health!

We need to call on our brothers and sisters to learn to settle their grievances without resorting to killing another human being – raping women and children – blowing up buildings out of their self-righteous hatred – playing games which hurt others, but relieves their own anxieties and covers from them the fact that they are mortal and one day will die.

We need to call on our brothers and sisters to take responsibility for each other.  No one should sleep on the street or in other than a bed, have warm clothing, enough food to eat and be able to live without the fear of another human being.  We are, afterall, more alike than different.  We are our brothers and sisters keepers.  We have heard those messages from childhood as have our parents, grandparents, great grandparents and much further back into history, heard them also, but we still have not put them into practice in our lives.

We need to call on our brothers and sisters to do at least one good deed each day for someone in need.

We need to dismantle our class structure which raises us up to believe some of us are better – as a part of a group – than others of us.

We need to dismantle what is left of racism.

We need to dismantle what is left of sexism.

We need to totally dismantle ageism.

And we need to do all of that and more before December 2013 so we can all end the year feeling great about ourselves and each other.  So that no matter where we are in the world it is a safe place and if we need anything the people in that place will move to supply whatever ‘it’ is.

According to Leviticus 25:10 “Thou shalt sanctify the fiftieth year and shalt proclaim remission to all the inhabitants of thy land; for it is the year of the Jubilee.”

This needs to be a year of great goodness – great deeds – great acknowledgement of our common and shared humanity each one equal to the next, no one greater than another.  We should work hard to keep this Jubilee Year and at the end, maybe we will have created habits which carry over into 2014.

50 years ago – at the beginning of this cycle of this Jubilee year -

  • John F. Kennedy and Medgar Evers were assassinated and W. E. B. DuBois dies!
  • Martin Luther King, Jr. writes his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail’ and later in the year gives his famous “I have a Dream Speech”, during the March on Washington.
  • Hoses and Police dogs turned on protestors and are nationally televised for the first time
  • Children’s crusade brings about a form of settlement – Birmingham juvenile court inundated with African-American children and teenagers arrested while protesting
  • 16th Street Baptist Church bombed killing four young girls – out of which came Condoleeza Rice
and out of all of this and much more in the celebration year, the sabbatical year, has come Barack Husein Obama.
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Conversations about “The Flu”

Monday, January 21st, 2013

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2013

It is amazing how we could be taken over by serious and urgent conversation about something that used to be so common and harmless.  A little worse than a cold, but tolerable and aren’t you glad its over.  A couple days off from work;  lying in bed – reading, eating, sleeping and then all is well.

Today, it is a major catastrophe.  An epidemic of gargantuan size.  A threat to civilizaiton.  The end to life as we know it.

Most of the conversations over breakfast lately have always included something about the flu.  In fact, we have had a couple guests who arrived with the flu who we had to offer to serve them breakfast in bed so the other guests would not revolt and run screaming out of our houses:)

In spite of all the talk, we have not had the flu – or a cold – in three or four years.  Can’t brag about it because that’s when it happens.  However, reflecting on the conversations and seeing how most of it was people who wanted to know how to strengthen their immune systems rather than whether or not they should get a flu shot, we are convinced society will survive this threat.

One thing we have changed in our lifestyle and recommended it several blogs ago – was to give up anti-perspirants and deodorants because we believe they are wicked bad.  Trying to do just that we had about a one month time of being very careful when around other people – not because of the flu, but because we didn’t want to share any obnoxious odors we might generate from having given up antiperspirants and deodorants. We went around smelling under our arms constantly when out and about; getting a bit perplexed when the organic apple cider vinegar we talked about using instead of the anti-perspirants, etc. gave us a hard time because it didn’t hold.

Well, that all worked itself out.  We now don’t even have to think about it.  Taking a shower in the morning – without soap, just plain warm water over the body to get rid of the overnight smells and then splash a little Bragg’s Organic Apple Cider Vinegar with the Mother under our arms we are good to go for the day.

Something must happen – the body must adjust and need a couple weeks to get over its dependency on having its under-arm pores plugged with aluminum to keep from smelling,  because after a couple weeks I can go two days without showering and without additional apple cider vinegar and smell just as nice and fresh.

I remember a time in the United States, when I was little, that people went a week without bathing.  Saturday night was the big ‘clean-up’ night.  You bathed – you soaked – you washed your hair – you defoliated and anti-perspirants were not around.  You just didn’t smell bad all week.  Today, with the diet changes, the heavy processed foods we eat, the change from having heavy proteins as another spice in the food to having it as large hunks of meat and all the rest of our new lifestyle, you can’t go a day without a shower – and bathing seems to have gone completely out of style.

There was much talk around the breakfast table about how apple cider vinegar works to quell your underarm odors.  To smell – you perspire and you have all those bacteria on your skin under your arms.  They drink up the sweat and then have to go to the bathroom.  They don’t have constructed houses under your arms with toilets which flush to send their excretions someplace else so you smell the result of their having gone to the bathroom under your arms.  Antiperspirants eliminate that because they plug your pores with aluminum.  Isn’t that supposed to be one of the causes for Alzheimer’s?  Don’t know if that is true, but it was certainly discussed as a causative factor.  Apple cider vinegar works because it is anti-bacterial and probably kills the bacteria so they have no need to go to the bathroom under your arm pits.

The most common vinegar talked about was Bragg’s Organic Apple Cider Vinegar.  They have a health program and someone from the company who goes around and gives talks about staying healthy the “Bragg” way.

The television commercials are all cautioning you to wash your hands and showing people with piles of soap suds on their hands over a sink.  We don’t wash our hands with soap and water.  That makes things worse.  All of your protective oils are washed away and for minutes after your fervent washing of hands all the germs in the world can come and find a home on your unprotected skin.  We ‘wash’ our hands with Organic Apple Cider Vinegar and it works wonders for the skin.  Sometimes, we even splash a little on our face taking care not to get it in the eyes because the burning will be fierce – we know because we’ve been there – done that.

Other than the vinegar as deodorant – the rest of the conversation was about the changes in our lifestyles and our environment, which seem to be breaking down our bodies at a very rapid pace, while we engage in denial.  Others are worried about global warming – we are worried about poor health becoming a way of life in these United States and then around the globe since we seem to export our lifestyle universally.

We wish you good health and hope you avoid this ‘epidemic’.  We also hope you will continue to read Bettina Network’s Blog and pass it around to all of your friends, colleagues, family and those you wish well.

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Benghazi Tells the Future?

Thursday, December 20th, 2012

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2012

Ed Note:  Yes, we had a breakfast conversation – several, in fact, – about the Sandy Hook massacre.  It is too early and people are too tender to join the media massacre of our collective psyche as they posture and jump on this with both feet for days and days and days.  So we will keep the notes we were sent and write about Sandy Hook after a few weeks.

Benghazi, however, is a different story.  There was conversation about John Kerry and Hillary Clinton and none positive nor complimentary.

I am still smarting at the way Susan Rice was treated so to hear others talk about John Kerry’s lack of ethics in chairing this committee hearing on Benghazi while he is looking to be the next Secretary of State warmed my heart.  I had always liked and respected John Kerry – always voted and campaigned  for him, in fact.  I don’t think I would again.

After watching and listening to his Republican friends diss Susan Rice so the path would be clearer for their long-time friend and colleague John Kerry made me more than a little sick to my stomach.

Given my horror at what happened with Kerry/Rice I thought my horror at John Kerry chairing the committee on Benghazi may have reflected my left over feelings about that conflict, however, the breakfast conversations about Benghzi and Kerry backed up my feelings.  How can the truth come out when the chair of the hearing is trying to be nice to the State Department employees and others on that side of the fence because he doesn’t want to go into the State Department as Secretary of State with anyone miffed at him about how they were treated, questioned, etc. at the hearing.

Whether those were his feelings or not, the ethics are clear and are like the elephant in the room.  I was amazed at the intensity of the feelings around this.  Americans are really angry about the quality and lack of ethics among its politicians.  One hears such comments in passing, but to see and hear  the feelings that this Benghazi hearing can engender confirms that we want something different from what has happened in the past.  At one time, such a breach of ethics would go unnoticed.  Today, the media will probably ignore the ethical implications and push John Kerry for Secretary of State, but the rumblings in the general public will not.  They will go along with the program, but its going to cost and surprise someone down the road when those resentments pop out.

The funniest comment was the one about Hillary’s ‘Benghazi flu and subsequent concussion’, which no doctor can cure.  These were not Republicans these were Democrats who were looking at Hillary as a possible candidate for President in 2016.  This, however, had them angry moving away from Hillary.  If this keeps up and spreads, her top numbers today are going to slowly slide as more surfaces about Benghazi and people start to wonder out loud what is she afraid of or hiding.  If these breakfast were any indication,  it looks as though she may be headed into a small storm of having her management abilities questioned – at the very least.

John Kerry should have either renounced any interest in being Secretary of State if he was going to chair this hearing or declined to chair the hearing in favor of someone who could be impartial in trying to get out what actually happened and if there was blame where did it lie.  None of that will surface during this hearing with its obvious political interferences which question the objectivity and impartiality of the chair and/or the committee’s ablility to do its job because of its chair waiting to be nominated Secretary of State.  John Kerry should be sitting where?  - with the questioners or with those being questioned?

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Walnut Oil on Furniture?

Sunday, December 16th, 2012

copyright 2012 Bettina Network, inc.

From a guest and blog reader:

Thanks for your blog on using Walnut Oil on wood furniture.  I tried it and it works phenomenally!  I used the Olive Oil and Walnut Oil – half and half.  A friend of mine used Walnut Oil straight from the Spectrum bottle.  She loves her way, I love mine.

She uses hers on her wood chopping block and wood bowls she uses for mixing salads.  The Walnut oil dries hard – but you have to let it sit a couple days – and it lasts awhile.  She used to use Mineral Oil and I gave her a hard time about that because Mineral Oil is a petroleum derivative (ed note: from Wikipedia “mineral oil is a liquid by-product of the distillation of petroleum to produce gasoline and other petroleum-based products from crude oil.”)and I don’t think it should come in contact with food.  Although with all the medicines made from petroleum derivatives and other things we use coming from distillates of petroleum we should be immune – still, I tried her straight Walnut Oil on my chopping block and it was great.

I used the mixture of Olive and Walnut Oils on my antique wood furniture and the shine is unbelievable.  It also looks as though nothing will penetrate or cause the furniture harm.  I even used it on my grand piano.  I did take an additional step.  After I oiled the furniture – which was rubbing in a half and half mixture with a few drops of an essential oil – I let it sit for a couple  days and then rubbed it again with just Olive Oil.

I did this by accident trying to undo what I thought was a great mistake.  The furniture was very sticky and yukky after oiling it and days later it was still sticky and yukky.  I didn’t know what to do and thought I had ruined my furniture.  I went back to the Olive Oil, rubbed the furniture with Olive Oil on a soft rag and couldn’t believe the results.  The furniture is beautiful.  The shine is incredible and old looking furniture now looks soft and with a beautiful sheen.

I put essential oil in the mixture because I would like my house to have a faint smell of lemon oil and essential oil of lemon does the trick.  I might try organic rose oil next time – even though it is wickedly expensive.  The smell of roses through the house should be great.

What fun to experiment like this.  I lost interest in cleaning and caring for my house.  I have now regained that because it has become a creative endeavor and with the products you are talking about I am not worried about giving myself a serious disease from my cleaning products.  I wouldn’t even let the woman who helps me clean use products she has been using for years.  She thought I was being silly, but has since changed her mind and won’t use anything else.  I am sure the other people she works for are happy with the change.

I don’t know where you get his stuff from but wherever, keep those great tips coming.  I am guessing, from breakfast conversations.

When I stayed at XXXXXXXXXXXX in the Bettina Network we talked about recipes for making banana bread.  I expected to talk about solving the huge problems in the world.  Maybe next time.  My banana bread, however, is great!  Your guests were right about the ingredients making the difference.  I used the same ingredients that I used before that conversation, in the same amounts, but they are now organic and the best I can find and the difference is astounding.  Worth the few extra quarters.  I eat less of it because the taste satisfies and doesn’t leave me craving white sugar, lard and flour.  We didn’t solve the worlds’ problems at the breakfasts I had in the Bettina Network, but the new discoveries around banana bread is a start.  And – my now using Walnut Oil instead of XXXXXXXXXXXXX means a minute amount of petroleum is no longer being used and maybe that is also a different kind of start to solving some of the world’s problem.  Who said to the flower “bloom where you are planted.”

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Was Susan Rice Used?

Friday, December 14th, 2012

copyright Bettina Network, inc. – 2012

RICE = ROGERS = GUINIER.  What do they have in common besides all being African Americans!

Was yet another woman used? – misused? – abused?  in this political process?

Looks to us as though Ms. Rice’s name was thrown out and then reeled in to get the deal President Obama wanted from Congress – and it looks as though not only was it a successful ploy, but he knows the political process very well and is not above playing the game.  After all, he is now one of the big boys.  I just hope he has not become one of the ‘good ole boys.’

Looks like something Bill Clinton did years ago when he was president and the woman used – abused – misused – was Lani Guinier .  Harvard Law School ProfessorIn 1993 Ms. Guinier was nominated by President Bill Clinton to be Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights.  Just like Ms. Rice, Ms. Guinier was eminently qualified – Radcliffe College, Yale Law School, Assistant to the then Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights – a really brilliant and accomplished Black Woman.  One of the Clintons’ Yale Law School classmates.

Congress jumped all over Bill Clinton demanding her nomination be withdrawn and who was one of those who counseled him to withdraw the nomination? – none other than Ted Kennedy (genuflecting – of sainted memory), among others, including the Black Female who we will only identify with the nom de plume “turn coat” – “sell out without knowing how much you were selling out for”.  So, of course, Ms. Guinier’s nomination was withdrawn.  The Wall Street Journal called her one of “Clinton’s Quota Queens” (remember the title of  Welfare Queen)?.  The racism and sexism of that was overlooked and instead of articulating what this was about and going ahead to back-up and support his nominee, Clinton succumbed to the pressure, even though it looked as though Ms. Guinier would be confirmed.  The loud, racist and sexist voices won the day.

The claim made to derail Ms. Guinier’s nomination – at the end of the day – turned out to be false, but the media proclaimed it loudly and kept the drum beat going so Ms. Guinier would be taken down – doesn’t that sound familiar?  In small print after the fact, it was acknowledged that the loud drums beat out the wrong message.  Now, isn’t that what they are doing to Ms. Rice?  Even louder, because they have had more experience  beating drums to drum out Black women!

And then there was Desiré Rogers.  Another tremendous African American woman from New Orleans.  I knew her parents and her grandparents.  They were very substantial people and Ms. Rogers had a very solid and ethical upbringing.

Partially because of that New Orleans upbringing, -after what she went through in Washington, D. C. – Ms. Rogers was able to continue her life almost without missing a beat and moved right on up!  And Condoleeza Rice – the horrible Republican who many can’t stand to even see or speak about – gets a standing ovation from any Republican group she appears in front of.  Is that some kind of contrast?  Takes me back to the days of Walter L. Cohen, African American who was head of the Louisiana Republican Party!

All three Black women were charged with things which were blown out of all proportion and all those charges and innuendos were kept going by the media who turned crap, half-truths and more into something which sounded real, substantial and reason for them to be not considered, re-considered, removed. Two were exonerated in the end when things quieted down and the racist sexist goals had been achieved.  Ms. Rice will also be so exonerated.  That will take awhile since we saw the news people this morning showing signs of relief that Ms. Rice would not be considered for Secretary of State.  One news reporter woman let out an audible sound of relief.  Although in Ms. Rice’s case it looks more like racism and sexism were used to reach a political goal and not a very big one, considering the price being paid by Susan Rice.

With Susan Rice,

U. N. Ambassador

Should be next Secretary of State

the forces of Congress came out once again to attempt to destroy an African American woman.- the Republican forces came out against her because the Democratic forces could not.  They would have been accused of pushing for the appointment of a friend – which was, in fact what the Republicans were doing.  What we have just witnessed on the political stage could be called “A Time of Surrogacy” with John McCain being the star of the play.

The good ole boys coming out to make sure one of their own got what he wanted.  The price someone else paid for that is really irrelevant and not to be considered.  That will just go down in the books as a debt to be repaid and they will look to John Kerry, at some point down the road, to repay the debt – and he will.

This time, it looks as though President Obama threw Ms. Rice to the Congressional Wolves so he could negotiate and get what he wanted from them if he withdrew her name from the short list and went back to John Kerry instead.  The games boys will play.

Don’t you think it is time we elect men – or – a woman?

Was this the same John Kerry who was President Obama’s coach for that first memorable debate – which came close to blowing Obama’s chances for re-election and at the very least promoted Mitt Romney’s campaign to a higher level?

It seems to me Mitt Romney should be the one promoting John Kerry to higher responsibilities not President Obama – but then, we don’t know what goes on behind those closed political doors.  And then I could be wrong – but have you read the Bettina Network’s Blog on “Rice and Kerry”?

And – in an aside, which probably had nothing to do with deals being made – Scot Brown, solely because of his ESP – and having nothing to do with games being played,  started his campaign as early as December 4th.  What did he know that the rest of us didn’t?  He is getting ready to run for John Kerry’s seat.  We think that seat should go to Martha Coakley – or – preferably to an African American woman as an appointment.  If games are going to be played – set better ground rules fellows, this is a society full of diversity with a diversity mind set.  To replace a White Man whose hands are unclean with another White Male whose … tsk tsk tsk!

Our breakfast table guests are seldom wrong.  They seem to have that inside track which comes out over those really scrumptious breakfasts served in the bed & breakfast homes in the Bettina Network.  Maybe its the coffee which brings out such great conversations.  Check them out, especially if you have conversation to share!

If John Kerry has any sense of decency he will withdraw his name from consideration.  It is the only decent and ethical thing he can do and it is the only way such games will begin to cease.  But then, he has moved far away from the days in which his actions and youthful ideology first got him elected to Congress.  How the mighty have fallen!  Or – is it that power corrupts?

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A Guest Responds to Rice and Kerry

Thursday, November 29th, 2012

I read your blog on the Secretary of State fiasco and I am so glad someone has put out there what is actually happening.   I am especially distressed about what I am seeing in the media and hearing about this Susan Rice thing.  Imagine putting such a lovely young woman through such trials because they need to clear a path for a WUCM member to become Secretary of State.  It is criminal!  Almost reaches the level of Depraved Indifference to who she is – how hard she worked to gain her credentials – how even harder she worked to serve the United States for a lot of years – to serve all of us – and now the reward for her hard work is this treatment which brings to my mind ‘Depraved Indifference. ’  A legal terms, but fully adequate in this context.  And that legal terms brings Philippa Schuyler – another African American woman – to mind.

If we had a media which published the truth over the decades and generations our ruling White Upper Class Males would not have been able to buy the election for Ronald Reagan – which all of us saw, but none reported.  Now, Republicans are coming to the fore to attempt to insure that their group is not left out of power – not their Republican group, but their WUCM group.  Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Tea Party etc. all belong to this group.

The media in Massachusetts is becoming confident and putting its toe in the water and beginning to talk (3:45am Channel 6) about how to persuade Governor Patrick to appoint Scot Brown to the seat that will be vacated by John Kerry when he is appointed Secretary of State.  If that doesn’t confirm your breakfast blog, nothing will.

The media is clearly complicit in all of this and their tom-toms ring out around the world heralding what they are all in agreement with and see as their vested interest to the continued sharing of power.

There was or is a group researching Philippa Schuyler, to keep her memory alive and her accomplishments in front of the public.  I think that is a laudable effort, especially at times like this when one can see similarities.  To put what is happening to Susan Rice in a historical context brings a total different picture to the forefront.

Philippa Schuyler was a young African American woman, killed by what some of us believe was first degree murder i.e. Depraved Indifference.  I’ve heard more than one person lately agreeing with me and I believe some information from the Philippa Schuyler committee also said the same thing.

The parallel to the way Susan Rice’s reputation is being ‘killed’ by a group trying to maintain the WUCM’s control is startling.

With Philippa Schuyler, there was a total ignoring of what happened to her by some and an attempt at public justification by the WUCM.  There was a Congressional Hearing.  No charges were brought even though clearly there should have been charges of Depraved Indifference and the culprits should have been brought to trial, but Congress held a hearing which they thought and apparently accurately so, would defuse any problems from the African American community following her death.  Not a peep since.  Not a peep from the minority and women groups about what is happening to Susan Rice, either.  Does that show how far outside African American women are?  Who are your defenders?

Ms. Rice, apparently,  must be sacrificed so John Kerry can have his day in the sun as Secretary of State?  Where is the African American, Latino American, Women’s groups on what is happening in front of your faces.  The quiet from you is deafening.  Have you not heard – ‘if they come for me in the morning, they will return for you in the afternoon?”  Certainly, an outcry behind what happened to Philippa Schuyler might have changed the world for minorities and especially women – but there was none.

What is interesting about the Philippa Schuyler parallel – Philippa and her father were very conservative in their thinking and writing, except where it came to reporting on events and issues where their main criteria was the truth.  They were conservative to the point of being involved with the then John Birch Society.  That didn’t, however, save Philippa’s life.  Liberal or Conservative doesn’t really matter does it!  Isn’t that what this bit of theatre is saying?  The WUCM Republicans ignore party lines when it comes to some things – and maintaining and increasing the power of two of their own is paramount.  The WUCM Democrats have and will in the future, return the favor.

Philippa drowned and her parents suffered the extreme loss and grief that happens under those circumstances.

Philippa was a great child prodigy and pianist who was outstanding and traveled the world playing concerts on many world stages.  She composed symphonies by the age of six.  If she had lived, I think her journalistic talent would have dwarfed her music.  Some of us believe it was her journalism which caused her death.  But she was both and it took both sides of her to produce the articles she wrote.

She was the only one to stand tall and write the real story of what happened in Africa decades ago in the death of – oh my, was it Lumumba!  Every other journalist got the story wrong, but they were consistent in what they reported.  So their story came from where? to be so consistently wrong?  ”Intel?”  Did all of the journalists who engaged in that bit of conspiracy lose their jobs?  Miss promotions? etc. etc.  Maybe they need to step back and take another look at this Susan Rice scenario.

Philippa, who kept her contacts with those low on the economic totem pole, had ways to find the truth and she wrote about what she found and  it was accurate and truth and her parents then had to deal with her death from, what some of us believe was purposefully negligent, – depraved indifference.

How does that relate to Susan Rice?  Yet another African American woman is being slaughtered for things which are minor especially when compared to things the WUCM group has done and suffered no career set-back from.  Yet Ms. Rice is being set-up to lose a possible appointment as Secretary of State because the WUCM group has a member – John Kerry – who wants to be Secretary of State.  And here we also have some Congressional involvement.  Not the Democrats, that would be too clear, but we don’t need to be led to see through a mirror darkly,  we need to see face to face.

Through the mirror darkly we see the Republicans fighting Ms. Rice – White Males all, except for the involvement of the White Woman who looks like a parallel to the African Americans who worked with the KKK.  All helping their brother WUCM members by attempting to take care of two of them – Scot Brown and John Kerry.  I can’t believe how this stuff happens over and over and over again and a story is spun by the media which has nothing to do with reality, but is throwing smoke in your face so your eyes sting and you can’t see what is in front of you – and throwing the work over to the other side so the WUCM can say – see, its not us – bring us that bowl of water so we can wash our hands clean and prove to you we were not involved!  Whose hands are being washed here?  The Republicans?  No – its the good ole Democrat boys looking out for their own.

Thanks again for the breakfast article.  I wish others had the guts to write the truth.  Sitting around Bettina Network breakfast tables I have heard some incredible talk and hope to continue.  It certainly cleared my head and got my thinking straightened out.

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