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A New Year and a New Way for doing the same thing! – Trash and Garbage Disposal!

Tuesday, December 27th, 2022

As the number of people who inhabit this world increases exponentially and become entangled in the culture of disposing of trash and garbage, what do you do? Do you add to the mess or have you discovered ways to do trash and garbage disposal to the benefit of all? – especially clean streets, clean sidewalks, clean gutters.

One thing is clear, if you live in these United States, how you dispose of your trash and garbage will totally and either negatively or positively affect people living on the other side of this world.

So, bringing in the New Year – whose side will you choose – the contaminators creating and making a wonderful home for bacteria, germs, viruses, bugs of every description, homeless animals, wild turkeys, geese roaming around and more – or are you going to choose the side of the angels? They are usually all dressed in white, immaculate, with beautiful environments, no smog or smoke around them, no piles of garbage gradually growing larger with each passing week.

We are taking a position in the middle and hope as time passes we can move closer to being with the trash and garbage angels.

Send us your suggestions on how to do this in 2023.

The biggest change we made this year was to understand that garbage must be CLEAN! OMG!!! – who puts out and throws away clean garbage!!!!!

We do. The biggest change to cause the best kind of garbage disposal is throwing away clean garbage.

How do you do that?

For starters – By being careful of the wrappings of the food you buy. Don’t buy food with huge plastic domes to keep what you are buying from getting crushed. Look around, you will find the same thing enclosed in smaller, more reasonable packages. And once you take the food out of its package wash the package in soap and water, the way you would wash your dishes once you have used them for a meal. Do the same thing with glass jars, metal containers and more.

You will notice a huge difference when you put your garbage out – to be picked up by the city or whoever picks up your garbage on a weekly, daily, or monthly bases – it does not attract all the animals in the neighborhood. That also means your garbage bag can stay in your house longer because it doesn’t smell. And another advantage comes from the fact that you won’t see your neighbors crossing the street before they reach your front area because they don’t want to smell the ugly!

When you have food to throw out – use the plastic bag your morning or evening paper comes in and tie a knot in that plastic bag before putting it into a bag for all such things.

Get up early in the morning on garbage collection day and put out your trash and garbage that morning. Don’t put it out the day before, giving time for everyone to pass and either throw their garbage into your bag; rummage through your garbage bags or pails for what they can use leaving a mess on your sidewalk; or etc.

Those two changes would make a dramatic change in the neighborhood on garbage collection day. Our neighborhood looks unbelievably abhorrent from the afternoon before garbage is collected until it actually happens the next day. Drive around and take a look. Especially during holiday time. There are the city supplied plastic push carts – which still aren’t enough to contain many peoples garbage – to the bags and boxes and more stuck on the side of the pails, in-between the pails, wherever more garbage can be put

Once you have put your garbage outside to be collected, step back and take a look. Does it look as though you are throwing away half the money you made that week in what you bought and are now disposing of – or is it neat, clean and modest?

We think everyone should be limited to one paper grocery-type bag a week per person. OMG I can hear the screaming. If you have more then that you should question how and on what you are spending your money.

Could you have more if you threw away less and thought more about garbage disposal.

We think the answer to that question is a resounding YES! Think about your trash and garbage disposal as the genesis of what you put into a savings account that week. One you aren’t going to use and draw from, but let accumulate. Without realizing it you will wind up with a very large savings account and that goes for those of us from the very bottom of the financial/economic ladder to the top.

Use fewer and smaller plastic disposal boxes on the food you buy – the price of those pieces of food will go down because in many cases, the containers and wrappings are more expensive than the food and other items they encase – and so on, and so on, and so on.

Let us know your garbage practices!!!!

J. P. Morgan Chase Bank – institutional Racism?

Tuesday, July 19th, 2022

Chase Bank recently came to Boston and set up offices around the area. They organized and internalized what they needed to succeed in this New England area. That includes internalizing the extreme racism of the area.

What is it like to be African American in these United States? We talk about addressing racism and wanting to eliminate it in this country. In fact, most of the people I know could not survive without their wrap of “better than” which helps them get up in the mornings and get through their day.

Keep reading and you will understand the day to day horribleness of being African American in the United States. For this article, in the New England area. Everyone dumps because they need to feel “better than”. After the dumping comes the denials. You – African American Male and/or Female – are not supposed to understand that system. If you do, you should keep your mouth shut because the only thing that will come of speaking up – speaking out – asking for change – demanding change when the ask is ignored and you are being viciously treated, is more horribleness.

Chase, in the deep south, was our bank. We used other banks in New England before Chase moved in and had horrible experiences. We came to Chase because we decided to go where we were known – into the deep south – and open our accounts in that part of the world. We were doing business there so we were able to open bank accounts there.

All of the banking problems we were experiencing in New England stopped when we took our banking business down south. We had a reprieve of a decade or more until Chase Bank decided to open branches in this New England area.

All the problems plus a few more, which initially caused us to take our banking to our old home town, re-surfaced when Chase moved into New England.

This article outlines one of the problems. Articles which follow will outline others – “Banking while Black” should be the title of this series.

Chase Bank, for whatever reason, stopped sending us our monthly corporate bank statements with copies of cancelled checks. That service was supposed to be a normal part of the banking relationship.

They stopped sending us statements for 2 1/2 years.

We called and called and the response was always the same – when you give us a new address that shows you moved, we will start sending your bank statements again.

Being persistent, we went back and forth for months trying to get our corporate bank statements. Finally, we filed a complaint with the Banking Commissioner. They notified Chase of the complaint and told them to send our statements from the month they stopped to the current month.

Chase did the minimum. They sent the statements without copies of the cancelled checks, which we needed for our corporate records. After several calls and another complaint to the Banking Commission we finally received the complete corporate statements which we should have been receiving over the past 2 1/2 years.

We spent lots of time trying to get these statements. We lost a lot. I could go on for another page about the damages, but you can imagine that part. Chase’s response – not even an apology. No one could find a reason as to why this happened. It struck me that we live in a neighborhood which has been redlined for decades. When the persons we spoke to trying to get our statements sent to us all said “when you send us a new address we will start sending your statements again”. That resonated on a very racist level. That is the kind of ‘policy’ which resonates in the deep south, but this is New England.

Of course, the bank person who responded to us first read a statement which said in affect “Chase does not discriminate on any level for any reason.” We laughed about that because it was so ridiculous.

Institutional racism plagues corporate America. To read such a statement and make such a blatant claim and to expect us to believe that was beyond ridiculous. It was mean, evil and meant to maintain institutional racism. If they are so perfect and do not discriminate then anyone who makes a complaint has lost before the ink on the complaint is dry. It is the ultimate denial. It says – to paraphrase – don’t tell us about the claimed discrimination you think you experienced because we will not address it we are perfect in that respect and this statement attests to that fact.

What is institutional racism? One definition is – there is personal racism experienced by minorities from someone white who feels better than. If that person does the discriminating within a bank from the perch of their job it is still personal racism. When a complaint is made and there has been discrimination and the institution backs its employees instead of addressing the discrimination – that makes it racism with the institution responsible – a form of institutional racism. There is more to the definition than that, however, that is one part of it.

That is one incident. There are many more. Too many for your emotions to take in one reading. We will add the rest one at a time as the Bettina Network journal goes out.

Real Estate – Is this the cause of the extreme racism which refuses to break and go away?

Tuesday, June 28th, 2022

Because of the business we were in, we spent many years closely aligned with the real estate community. During that time our discoveries were shocking and as we try to sell our house all the lessons we learned and tried to address are incorporated in that attempt.

The racism in the real estate industry is well known. We should say – the bigotry – since these actions include more than African Americans. The fact that it has been impossible to eradicate or even mitigate is also well known. Attempts to end/change the structure and how realtors, developers, contractors and all those others aligned with the real estate community, have been notoriously unsuccessful.

Decades ago, there was one big attempt – which everyone thought was brilliant and would make major changes in the apartheid engaged in by the real estate community – it did not.

For a time, if you wanted to rent an apartment, condo, house, etc. and you were turned down or games were played with you so you would not be able to gain the home you wanted, there was recourse. Once you made a complaint to your local or federal Human Rights office they would start the investigation by sending a white family behind the minority family that felt discriminated against in the rejection of their offer to rent or buy the house of their dreams (or the house which fit their pocketbook). Many such cases, after that kind of test, were won and damages paid. However, that did not even put a dent into changing the way racism is institutionalized in the real estate industry.

Neighborhoods and so therefore schools, remain segregated; churches were the most segregated of all and all the trappings that went with the kind of racism maintained by this real estate community remained in place for all to experience.

Today, that bigotry is still practiced. It is more sophisticated, but still in existence and tightly controlled.

Working with realtors in maintaining this system are banks and other lending institutions. After banks fail to maintain residential bigotry it is the turn of the employers of the people trying to rent or buy in what today are still redlined houses and/or neighborhoods.

How does this happen so consistently:

  1. We live in a very racist, sexist, etc. society. From birth we are trained in how to be a bigot. Some of us take to that training like a duck takes to water. Others have some brakes applied and are never quite comfortable, but the everyday things one has to do to maintain a sense of being “better than” infects us all – white, black, latinx, LGBTQ+, muslim, etc. Some fight against the need to be superior to and others just accept their unearned status and do what is necessary to keep it going.

2. What does that include? Well, the first line of defense against ‘diverse neighborhoods” is with the home-owner and/or the real estate agent showing the property. The wrong person shows up and that person experiences foot dragging, obfuscation, excuses, everything that can be thrown up to keep them from wanting to move ahead with the sale or rental of that particular property. Real Estate Agents have been known to bring up another property – supposedly a better buy and one more suited for the client – and in a more acceptable neighborhood for that particular person. When all else fails, the property is taken off the market until a better time to list it for sale. After that particular minority has moved on? Before others get the same idea and start to look at that house? Whatever the reason given the house comes back on the market after a time and we start all over again.

3. f the person looking for housing perseveres and somehow gets past that first obstacle, It is then up to the financial institutions. Banks are better at this than others, but they all come together for the same result. Keep people in neighborhoods with their own kind and especially keep them out of the most prestigious white northern european neighborhoods. Even in those neighborhoods an occasional minority can buy as long as it is not one of the houses really off-limits to non-whites.

Banks have myriad ways they block the sale of houses which were “redlined”, but today not called such. The understanding is there anyway. Not a relevant word need be spoken – which allows for denial. Always make sure there is the ability to deny what you are actually doing.

4. If a minority through some miracle makes it past the financial institutions, the employer is next up to keep the societal segregation. We have seen this happen over and over again. It is a perfect set-up for denial. The person who has been so successful is making it past society’s barriers to ‘diversity’ in housing hits his/her employer and gets fired. The quicker the firing to the date of purchasing the new house the better.

Once fired, it is all downhill from there and the new employee or older employee who moved into the ‘wrong’ house very seldom connects his/her firing to the home purchase. A few have made that connection immediately because they are conscious of the barriers they have crossed and have an understanding of institutional racism. Those who have ‘smoked the pipe’ even when told what has happened and why are too dazed to pick it up.

The person so fired just picks up, gathers up, does whatever is necessary to survive financially and moves on.

Employers have far more ways to accomplish getting a non-white person out of a house they should not have been allowed to buy in the first place and they use them all when necessary.

5. After this comes the time for a minority who has managed to stay in a house so “redlined” to sell and move on. Then the fun starts because the end result changes. It is not to keep other minorities out of the neighborhood and out of that house. They have probably lived there many years. Uncomfortably with lots of racist happenings, but this is a new game.

The goal of this game is to make sure that minority leaves the neighborhood he/she should not have been allowed to inhabit in the first place with as little wealth as possible.

That is a game which would make an intensely interesting game of chess pale by comparison and that is for another article.

A Series – Part ONE: Racism, Sexism and more…. – the structurally divided system we call the United States of America! But, it could also be called the World in Which We Live! This series will cover what maintains it in such an evil way with individual examples!

Friday, June 17th, 2022

We write and talk a lot about the bigotry of racism, sexism and so much more. We keep that talk on an institutional level. Very seldom do we write and talk with individual, real -true-to-life examples. That would interfere with our ability to deny – which is the foundation of what allows those structures to continue to exist. Start to talk about your real, true-to-life example of having experienced racism, sexism and all the rest and denial will immediately pop-up to explain away your real life experience. It is the most potent way we have of continuing bigotry’s existence. Raw, unwashed, in-your-face bigotry, maintained, continued, developed through denial.

We see denial being institutionalized in our educational system. Florida and the laws it is passing is an example. Those laws parallel the laws of old which made it a crime to teach slaves to read and write. Why criminalize something so seemingly harmless as teaching reading, writing and arithmetic? Because that was the beginnings of an effective way out of slavery. Today, we are trying to re-instituionalize a modernization of those criminal laws. Why? To maintain the “better than” in this society of white male northern-europeans peoples. And even to make a difference within that group of those who believe one way as against those who believe another. Bringing culture, religious beliefs and more into that “better than” equation.

Our world was rocked when we saw and got to know many of the victims of the bigotry against the elderly. We had seen bits and pieces of it pop-up, but to really experience the bigotry the elderly must live with, ignore and end their lives living in the most humiliating and vicious way – usually very broke after everything they worked all their lives to acquire – is an earth-shattering experience.

Society is structuring itself to maintain the elderly totally apart from the rest of world. That allows grifting, theft, physical – mental – medical – legal abuse to come to the forefront and happen with everyone looking on while denying what they are seeing and turning it into something positive. What is most annoying is that those doing this as the leaders of this pact are just like you and me. They look normal, talk normal, participate in their part of the world just like you and me with no one the wiser. They, however, begin to acquire wealth we don’t even give a thought as to from whence it has come.

We have published several articles on what happened to Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett and Marceline Donaldson. African Americans – Elderly – with fairly substantial assets. Mostly, what we published has been ignored except by those who experienced the same thing. We were surprised at how many elderly are experiencing this “putting the elderly into poverty” and then, let us use a small percentage of what is taken to keep them barely surviving and right under the nose of and with the approval of their families. Or, I should say because of the neglect of their families who are very, very busy. That is one real-life example which has uncovered many more. What we saw is that you don’t know when something like that will hit you. As a society we are taught “denial”. I am not my brother or sisters keeper – let them work it out on their own. That is our attitude towards bigotry of all kind. That is why it is so prevalent, long lasting and horrific in this society and in this world.

Guardianship is one evil in this society which has been practiced mostly against Jews, but is beginning to spread to other minorities as the wealth of different groups increases.

Murder of the youngest generation of minorities is happening because the numbers of minorities in this society are increasing and those who we refer to today as minorities are predicted to be the largest functioning group within a decade or so. How to cope and reverse that? Kill the children of these minorities. Well, you will get a few children of the majority group, but then Hitler targeted and killed Jews, but also included non-Jews to be most efficient and effective in his goal to remove Jews from the world. And the result of this killing of the children? When the oldest working group of minorities retires or dies there will be far fewer minorities to replace them, effectively re-establishing the inequality that currently exists. Those who would replace them have been murdered by the hundreds.

Corporate America has long had a very high wall, to protect those at the top, which they have built over time and are now re-enforcing so that wall will last many more generations. The wealthiest people in this society are those who have developed businesses, new ideas, etc. Those are all white-male-mostly Northern European types who are the world’s billionaires – or working very hard to become such with support of their cultural, racial, ethnic brothers.

How has that happened and how has that line been kept so free of minorities crossing into the land of entrepreneurial opportunity? From our perch, we have seen the ideas and hard work and success of minorities and women in the entrepreneurial area stolen by this group of white male, etc. There has been a re-definition of things like “theft” and more so this group of white males have a smoother road as they cruise down to reach that billionaire status on someone else’s back. Take a look at the history of Silicon Valley – only don’t leave out the minority businesses stolen; the women-owned businesses stolen; the refusal of investors to support and invest only in business brought to them by their “own kind”. Don’t leave out the young white males who raced through Cambridge and places like MIT, Harvard and more to see who was doing what that they could steal and take to investors who would look at the ideas with a cover to induce blindness against those from whom those businesses were stolen.

What has most disturbed us, because it is going unnoticed, supported by the extremely wealthy few, and within this group “theft” re-defined to make the actual theft going on constantly a non-event. If you break into my house and steal one of my artifacts, jewelry, furniture – even food, you are subject to arrest and jail for that theft. If you break into my computer and or corporate location, steal my business plan, take all of the ideas, structure, customers, experience I acquired while building a substantial business, etc. and at the same time do everything you can to destroy my business so I will be busy just trying to survive while you develop the model you coveted, that is not considered theft and subjects you to no criminal action. It also does not disqualify you from being considered for funding for the ideas and businesses you stole from others.

Every day, we come across people who have been crushed by such theft after 20 to 30 years of working to build a business with ideas all their own and have been successful in the process as they introduced to society a new way of doing something or a new product or something not out there before. We also see the people who crushed them and tried to leave them and their business by the wayside because they decided to set in place a copy of their business and because the people so crushed tend to be minorities and/or women the white males used to succeed. They have access to capital to grow their business, which the minorities and women don’t have; they have access to partners, those who have worked at the top of large white-male owned businesses which take an interest and the kind of theft and destruction which took down the business they copied is ignored. Unfortunately for all of us the ethics of such businesses are in the gutter, however, most of us go along with the growth of this stolen business as it becomes an intrinsic part of this society with which the rest of us have to live.

Real Estate is a biggy! The structure, wealth, schools in the geographic location of where you live depends upon your culture, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual choice, etc. and that institutionally racist structure was put in place eons ago. It began in slavery and was intensified when we changed our economic structures from “in your face” slavery to a more modified form with which we live today.

The importance of the geographic location where you live and work and have your being increased dramatically and became entrenched and unchangeable during separate and unequal days and today is becoming even more bigoted than it was generations ago. It is now easier to discriminate on such a level without anyone noticing or those who notice and complain being crushed and blamed for their plight after that drastic crushing.

As the world moved forward, that structure moved with it and has been kept in place by realtors, the real estate industry and its cousins. They maintain geographical bigotry in your living accommodations very effectively and much easier than a few generations ago, which in turn maintains racially divided schools which maintains racially divided businesses which occupy the retail spaces in those racially divided neighborhoods with the result that some of such businesses thrive and become very successful and some, in the minority neighborhoods, hang on by their fingernails for a lifetime.

These are some of the areas we will research and write about going forward with actual examples.

We have lots out there in the literature which talks about structural racism and how society separates unequally, but individual examples seem to be the most threatening and the least written about – especially in books used in schools of higher learning where to examine such things might cause a great disruption in this society. It is the area that many will read about and immediately engage in denial and denigration of those doing the writing.

We, at Bettina’s, have lived long enough that such denigration will not deter us. You are encouraged to join us with your stories. After all, we must all experience denial to understand how vicious it is.

In Scripture you will read: “Do you think I come to bring peace on earth. No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other; three against two and two against three”…….Luke 12:51-52.

We talk and sing a lot about “peace”. We knock those who we claim bring “divisiveness’. But when we do that what happens to such passages in Scripture? We think there is nothing wrong with “divisiveness”. We need to look at good and evil and separate those concepts instead of making divisiveness substitute for evil and coming together substitute for good.

………An Elegant Historical House for Sale!

Saturday, April 2nd, 2022
Every corner of this home bespeaks elegance, history, beauty and invites you to stay awhile. Across the street is a park; two door down on the same side of the street is another park and look out the windows, you will see the Charles River!

49 Hawthorn Street – Cambridge, MA. 02138 – $5,800,000.

What follows, under “House for Sale” describes a house which we would like to bring to your attention.  We hope you will consider buying the house – either for yourself, your family or for one of your favorite institutions and/or charities.

A kitchen for those who actually cook with room for everything – your utensils, pots, spices and so much more. Many fantastic meals have come out of this kitchen.

     The house we are describing was designed and built by an MIT graduate in 1900.  She was one of MIT’s  first female architectural students..  Her papers are in the MIT Library.  She is Lois Lily Howe with her own architectural firm and all the architects working with her were women.  Such a history in today’s climate makes quite a statement.

This particular house – at 49 Hawthorn Street – is the only Howe designed house in this area in which the interior has not been stripped and re-built taking away all of the historical design. The only room that needs to be brought back to its original design is the kitchen. It is wonderful as it is, however, to bring it back to Ms. Howe’s design would be special.

A fantastic welcome as the front door is opened to you and/or your guests. It speaks of the elegance which shows up all around the house – from French to Spanish to English to African to South American touches making it an escapee from Old New Orleans.

Marceline and Robert have lived in this house for 40 years and love every corner.  Being people who love history (Near Eastern History was the subject of Robert’s Harvard Doctoral thesis) and with Marceline’s educational background in the School of Architecture under Ralph Rapson, they have totally enjoyed living in this house and discovered much in the process. Selling it under duress they want to know it is in the hands of people who would continue in that design preservation route. The area has a penchant for taking beautiful culturally diverse homes and turning them all into a Northern European Scandinavian aesthetic. They look as though they were all designed in the Ikea Showrooms. So sad! There is nothing wrong with the Ikea Designs, however, what is wrong is making them the ultimate, cultural, design touch stone. This house escaped that “remodel”.

Ms. Howe built the house for William Augustus Maynadier – a Harvard Professor who taught “Arthurian Legend.”- the story of King Arthur and the Round Table.  It was a required course for all Harvard men. There were no Harvard women in those days.

Being very strong feminists, the Donaldson/Bennetts found that Harvard/MIT combination quite special.  While “feminist” was not a term in her day, Ms. Howe clearly was a feminist as we know the term today, stepping out into the world of Architecture the way she did.  Prof. Maynadier would be known as an extreme sexist today. He was teaching a class which laid the ground work for the very horrible sexism which most 20th century women have had to deal.  And yet, he hired Ms. Lois Lily Howe to build his house.

Arthurian Legend – King Arthur and the Round Table – was a way of teaching men how to treat women in that “on the pedestal and out of the equality” area.  The necessity of opening doors and standing on the side as she entered the room and etc. for this weaker sex is what was being taught, although not so specifically – it was wrapped in the Arthurian Legend.  All the things women have fought to have removed for decades so they could be treated as equals is what Prof. Maynadier’s class was about.  It was totally accepted at the time. Most people don’t know that this originated at Harvard.  It was in the general world population at the time, but not to the extent that it became entrenched with Prof. Maynadier at 49 Hawthorn Street.

It was interesting to us that Prof. Maynadier chose Ms. Howe to design and build his home. – which he used to live in and invite paying guests to stay with him.  The house has had that use throughout its 100 plus years of existence.  It hosted seminars, class sessions, teas and many famous and not so famous people, still while serving as a very private home.  

One of four bathrooms in this home – designed with jacuzzi, steam/shower room and separate enclosed toilet. The plumber calls it a “no bad smells” bathroom.

The Donaldson-Bennetts used their home to have what today are called bed & breakfast guests and to build the first network of such private homes working their way across the country and turning a national and an international network of bed and breakfast homes into a commonly known and accepted concept. This house was the beacon.  Besides this house, they had homes also in Thailand, England, France and more.

The guys who founded Airbnb stayed with them before those three even thought of such a company.  They were sent by Venture Capitalists – particularly the Capital Network in Cambridge – who wanted to fund such a venture, but not one designed, created and being grown by African Americans.  So they helped themselves to the Bettina Network, Inc’s business plan and everything else they could find to help them get the same kind of venture off the ground.  They sent people to offer their homes to join the Bettina Network, inc. but were really only interested in the process of how that was done – just as they hacked into and used Craig’s List to get their initial clients. The Donaldsons’ believe that when their web site was stolen, locked and offered back to them for enormous sums of money – it had to do with the genesis of Airbnb, although that was not known at the time as Airbnb was just forming.

While the Donaldson/Bennett’s lived and are living in the Lois Lily Howe house, Harvard sent many guests to stay with them, as did MIT, Tufts, Boston University, Boston College and more.  Several admin people called regularly to make reservations for guests visiting Harvard and other Universities in the area as well as private corporations calling for guests to whom they wanted to give privacy.. Everyone who stayed loved their time in the house and totally were taken by its history stories and general feeling.

Many institutions and corporations used the house when guests were visiting who they wanted to have privacy without being worried that their guests would be stalked in the lobby of the hotels to pick up information that could be used for media articles. They also liked the fact that guests wouldn’t need so many levels of security when they came to Boston.  Guests included such as Ambassador Victor Israelian, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, top management from the State Department, many of the USA’s top families, many scientists – mostly physicists – who loved the quiet and privacy of the house where they could enjoy the patio where squirrels and birds would visit them as they worked on the back porch.

If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to call.  If you or someone you recommend would like to see the house, we are available at their or your convenience.

Call Marceline Donaldson – 617 497 9166 or email bettinanetwork@comcast.net putting 49 Hawthorn St in the subject line.

What follows is a fuller description of the house as it appears in different publications.

                              HOUSE FOR SALE – Cambridge, MA. 02138

“Marceline and Robert are selling their home.  If you don’t want to buy it, please pass this along to those you know who might be interested and/or know someone who would love to step into their shoes.  As a private home or as a home with a bit of  income so you can live there and do other things.  Income can be in the neighborhood of $1,080.00/night, not including income from events, etc..  

Marceline and Robert did a wonderful job and are now moving to New Orleans – which is where Marceline grew up.  They have not been able to survive the onslaught against them of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the way they treat minority elderly in what was and is an apparent attempt of a group within the state to relieve Jews, African Americans, Latinx and others of any wealth that could be passed on to the next generation. This is the new racism/bigotry that is replacing the separatism that followed slavery.

The house has been newly painted with, among other improvements, a new 75 gallon commercial water heater with a 20 year rating and lots of other elegant restorations which keep the historical design of the house as much as possible..  

It is one of the few homes in Cambridge, which gives you views of the Charles River from many of the bedroom windows and it overlooks the Riverbend Park on one side  with no other building blocking your view.  There is also a second park (the historical Longfellow Park) just two houses down on the same block and the same side of the street as Marceline and Robert’s house.  Fantastic and very unusually elegant to have so many parks within the same block the home in which one lives.  One of the only homes in the area with such and with a spectacular view.

You would have 9,000 square feet of living space in this house over five floors.  5,400 (apx.) finished into three floors of elegant historical living and 3,500 square feet (apx) of attic and basement which can be finished into fantastic living space.   

For a possible future use of the basement take a look at the basement of Harvard University’s Memorial Chapel’s basement.  

The attic could be refinished into an exquisite ballroom for entertaining with its 16 foot height (apx) at its apex with no beams going across to obstruct the wonderful height of this room.  The architect – Lois Lily Howe, in 1900 was one of the first, (she is credited with being the first), to be able to build such an attic.  Most attics are so clogged with structures to keep the roof from falling in on itself you do not have the breathtaking space one finds here.  This attic is a full floor.  Its footprint is that of the entire length and width of the house.  Just think of the elegant entertaining you could do in that attic.

Historically, guests came to events in such houses and went to the second floor living room to leave their coats, etc. and freshen up and then went up another floor or two to the tea, dinner, dance or etc. on the upper floors.  Today, we don’t have attics large enough for such events, especially not one replicating the footprint of the other floors of the house.

Lois Lily Howe was the architect.  Designed and built in approximately 1900, she was one of MIT’s first female graduates.  She established her own architectural firm and the architects she hired were women. 

In the process of designing and building this home,  Ms. Howe scrounged the area for homes being torn down which had historical touches and she brought that actual history into this house.  The mouldings are exquisite and are some 100 years older than the house. 

The history of this house includes a psychiatric history – Dr. Lydia Dawes, a well known psychiatrist of yore, was an owner for some 40 plus years before the Donaldson-Bennetts arrived and the house frequently  embraced many of her friends who were also famous guests.  Sigmund Freud’s daughter stayed often and worked with Dr. Dawes.  Together they produced one of the first psychiatric journals in the area from this house.  Many local psychiatrists remember a part of their training that happened on the couch by the living room window overlooking the magnolia tree.  So much history goes with this house both  within its structure and with the people who have passed through.  

Marceline and Robert have spent decades trying to preserve and create a garden worthy of Lois Lily Howe who ended her career and life as a landscape architect.

You may have heard of  the many outstanding and famous people who stayed under the Donaldson-Bennett’s roof during their time in the house because you were probably one of them.  You can now own this magnificent property so beautifully located. 

Want more information – call Marceline – 617 497 9166 or email us bettinanetwork@comcast.net

Structural Racism/Rittenhouse/Blacks & Jews

Monday, November 22nd, 2021

by: Marceline Donaldson

A huge topic and we will not even skim the surface.

Racism, when it has become “structured” into a society and into its institutions, is a very complex thing. We like to think it is an “unfortunate incident” which happened because the person to whom it happened was complicit in some way. It is not. Every action you take is governed by the bigotry structured into the society in which you live which has successfully structured that bigotry into every core and every cell of its existence. The experience of bigotry is not a one time experience. It is all day everyday for those who are the “minority.” It is also an all day everyday experience for those who are “white.” Their lives move ahead beyond their talents and contributions to this society because of the fact that they are in the “better than” group.

Step out of your house and it starts. Stay in your house where bigotry wafts in with the very air you breathe – it is constantly ongoing and just as constantly denied. Bigotry happens – denial follows and is given credibility.

The United States has much to deal with to become the society it claims to be and the main thing is its bigotry which was installed at its beginnings with the way American Indians were treated and with slavery.

The Rittenhouse case deals mainly with the structural/institutional racism of the Court system. It has been a showcase for all to see how this structural racism works – how and why it was set up – what is to be gained by the “better than” group through the existence of institutional racism.

My background and growing up years is totally intertwined with what happened in the Courts and with what happened on the streets which came before today’s Court system. This “street happening” brings to the forefront the relationship between Blacks and Jews – which is fraught with much bigotry itself and so much more.

What didn’t come out to the general public, until after the verdict is that the men killed were Jews. They were characterized and described as “white.” That is far from the truth. Maybe it is my age, but I remember when Jews were as ostracized as blacks and when the “n” word was applied and Jews were called that and worse – all names most blacks would know and recognize. It is thought today that those words applied only to Blacks. Blacks were and are called “nigg…”. They are not the only group so called by the Northern European-ancestry group. It is spread around to the rest of the world encouraging it to pick up and use those names. East Indians are another group to whom the “n” word was applied, especially when England colonized their country.

Let me give you an example of black/jewish relationships and what happens in these United States – from my own background:

Way back when I was a young child my grandfather used to bring me regularly to #1 Audubon Place in New Orleans when he picked me up (grandparents visiting rights) and he had business with Sam Zemurray or just went to visit. I loved the house. I especially loved the dining room with its spanish feel and walking through the wrought iron decorative gates into the dining room.

My grandfather would announce his appearance by calling out to the cooks to put water in the soup because O.C.W. had arrived. Everyone thought that was funny. I also spent many a summer’s day at the Zemurray home outside of New Orleans. A kind of life I loved and embraced quickly. When we arrived, my grandfather was there to visit with Sam Zemurray and someone working on the estate was called to take care of me. Mostly that meant taking me out in a canoe on a pond from which we could see people walking around in the distance which I was told was to admire the azalea garden open to the public. I never did see that azalea garden, but I saw pieces of it because whenever a shipment of azaleas arrived at the Zemurray estate my grandfather was called and we went out to pick up the latest truly beautiful plant for his garden. Before he died my grandfather had an exquisite azalea garden in his front and back yards all from those shipments.

Other times, we went to one or the other Zemurray estate because my grandfather, with his Columbia University education, tutored two of the Zemurray children. My grandmother was a regular visitor with her skills put to use and my mother was named Doris Taylor after Doris Zemurray – Sam Zemurrays’ daughter.

It is a long involved story which needs to be told in full because it shows the beginnings of a corporation which today is dumped on because of how it developed. The story of its Black/Jewish start is nowhere to be found. That has been “whitewashed.” Could that be the history those in control wanted to hide and wound up instead with a company considered “inhumane” by others?

My great-grandfather was an Episcopal priest. He was the Rev. Dr. David Franklin Taylor. There was a strong connection between one Jewish family and one Black family way back when. My great-grandfather was a close friend of “old man”Zemurray”, the founder of United Fruit. A company which today has a horrendous reputation including in the fields of racism and more. Back then it was clear and uncontroverted that the company was founded by a Jew, but grew because of this alliance between this one Black family and this one Jewish family.

“old man” Zemurray, as he was called then, founded United Fruit by going to the docks in New Orleans with an ice cream-type push cart. The kind that would appear in most neighborhoods with the man pushing the ice cream cart jingling his bells and calling out for the children to hear and they came running with their nickels and dimes to buy ice cream.

In New Orleans there was more than one kind of such push cart. Hot tamales were sold on the street in the same way. As I recall, a dozen hot tamales from such a cart cost 45 cents.

In New Orleans, “old man Zemurray” had such a cart full of ripe bananas he picked up from the docks and some given to him by those on the ships that came into the docks. They could not be sold to the stores, for which the other bananas were sent because they were ripe and they would be black by the time they reached the stores for which they were intended. Zemurray’s business grew rapidly. He had a business selling a product for which he paid nothing. So very quickly, he went from the push cart selling bananas on the street, which is how he started United Fruit, to a business hiring employees mostly from Honduras.

Mr. Zemurray’s problems grew with his business, as happens to most who start new businesses. His were mostly personnel related. The people who came to the United States to work at United Fruit came from Honduras and had a very different culture, a different way of living and that began to cause major problems. My great-grandfather was the priest/rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church (a part of the Anglican communion). Most, if not all of those from Honduras were members of that Anglican communion and so Rev. Dr. Taylor and Mr. Zemurray formed an alliance beyond friendship into business. Rev. Taylor would work with the people United Fruit employed to help them acclimate to this American culture and Mr. Zemurray was then free to dramatically grow his business.

Today, United Fruit is a huge corporation, but that Black/Jewish beginning is almost lost in history. In today’s world it would be seen very differently from what it actually was. It was beginning to lose that history when I was growing up because Jews were beginning to call themselves “white” and the general U. S. society could not see such an alliance and friendship as one amongst equals as existed between the man who founded United Fruit and the man who was responsible for a serious part of its early growth. When I was a small child, the stories and the talk were about how United Fruit would not have existed or grown as it did without the friendship and working together of those two men – the Jew and the Black. Back then Jews were not hired to work regular jobs. In fact, it is within my lifetime that banks went from hiring no Jews to now hiring Jews for jobs up and down the bank ladder. Jews back then had to either start their own company or find some other independent way to make a living. That is what Mr. Zemurray was doing. Looking back into that history from today, it is easy to re-write it so that its real beginnings are “cleaned-up”.

When I became an adult the relationship between Blacks and Jews remained, but had changed. There were many Jews around Martin Luther King and the black civil rights movement. They were there because they were experiencing bigotry because of their Jewishness; they were struggling to overcome the “n” word and all that it implied; and they were fighting for the freedom and equality of both groups. In many places where you had to fill out forms, it was clear that Jews could not fill out and check “white’ as many do today.

All throughout the Jewish community in this country and abroad there was that alliance. Sadly, it has substantially diminished because many Jews see themselves as a part of the Northern European-ancestry group and discriminate against Blacks the same way they do.

Before we get too ‘sanctified’ I think I need to point out here that there are many Blacks who have taken the same route. The more money the more they feel “different from” those with the same skin tones and the more justified they feel in doing to other blacks what was done to them and/or their ancestors.

What the Rittenhouse case surfaced is the fact that there are still many Jews working in civil rights groups with Blacks to gain equality for both groups and so the two Jews who were killed by Rittenhouse. They were not bystanders they were participants in a movement which they and their families saw as important. They had been trained, apparently, as children not to be bystanders to benefit from the sacrifice of others, but to be participants in bringing about a world where we all enjoyed equality and took responsibility for each other.

The Court system in this country, from the smallest court to the United States Supreme Court, has grown from its beginnings to where it is today, laced with bigotry and put in place to maintain the superiority of the Northern European-ancestry male, especially over the slave.

One need look no further than the Plessy decision at the end of the 19th century which brought into being “separate but equal” as a doctrine we have had to live by and which continued and put in stone the separation of the races with non-‘white’, none Northern-European-ancestry people as those who had to be controlled and kept in an inferior place. When society could no longer keep those inequalities then the Court stepped in to make sure white was also “better than”, “superior to”, and all those other terms by which we have lived almost from day one of this country’s founding.

Brown vs the Board of Education came along and reversed the Plessy decision and we all rejoiced. However, the rejoicing became muted as we saw what that meant institutionally/structurally.

An integrated educational system has never been a reality, in spite of the Brown decision. Real estate interests, amongst others, were employed to keep that from happening. Even today, separate neighborhoods and thus segregated schools are the norm – which is one way we found around the Brown decision. What did happen was the promotion of a group called the Black Muslims or Nation of Islam which promoted the Jews as evil and tried to promote Blacks as “better than.”

The real “better than” people allowed and promoted such groups because they would cause the split between Blacks and Jews that this Northern European-ancestry group had been trying to bring about, but couldn’t because of the long history of such cooperation. They did manage to do a great deal of harm to that relationship and did help to spin a tale, even though not true. It put a lid on real equality for generations to come.

Jews didn’t help because many tried to move into the “better than” group and did everything they could to hide and move ahead without their Jewish identity showing.

The one place it was clear the “better than” people could not lose was the Court system. Lots has been happening in this Court system under our noses and we are just now awakening to the damage done. The “better than” group has been able to structure into its system what is needed to maintain bigotry. The loudest verdict so far is the Rittenhouse verdict, but more is coming. The Republican Party has focused intensely on “stacking” the Court with judges who would maintain a system of inequality where they and those like them would always win and the others would increasingly be denied their rights.

The judge, the defense attorneys, the prosecution all worked together like a well oiled machine – set up from the start of slavery and has just been given an overhaul after the shock of the general voting public having elected an African American president. It is clear the concern before that was not as strong as it is today. Not even looking at the fact that the general population in this country is now about to turn majority-minority. That was true in the south during Reconstruction. There were blacks elected to Congress, to their state legislatures and in all areas of the south. That was not so true of the north. The majority of citizens in the south were black and mostly former slaves.

Violence raises its head quite high today – as it did when there was a threat of African Americans gaining equality. The huge threat in Tulsa-Black Wall Street – brought the ancestors of those who are the white terrorists of today out to kill Blacks who seemed to be gaining equality and in fact, had achieved more than they and/or their families had achieved in terms of education and finance.

Today that is also beginning to be true as you look around at the condition of today’s minorities and so we are attacking and attempting to eliminate generational wealth of minorities, health, property and more of those considered “less than” and we are doing it through a corrupted Court system.

Take a close look at your Courts. Many incorporate a mafia where all else fails. In Massachusetts who was head of the Court system? Whitey Bulger’s brother. The problems we are facing in the Courts in these United States are much larger than we will talk about, write about or attempt to rectify.

Amen?

Danforth and Thiel have What in common?

Friday, October 8th, 2021

The more we research the more unbelievable it all becomes. Maybe we are naive with expectations we should dump. Maybe the world needs to stop idolizing white male northern-europeans-ancestry people and start over again including everyone in decisions, actions, all to advance better living for everyone. It is really tiring to see generation after generation making the same mistakes.

We have been digging to try to understand what is going on with the Republican Party. Why has it become so extremely racist/sexist/add all the other minorities, but waffle a bit on homophobic. That was our first clue as we followed the money. – who could cause that? John Thiel?

We were taught early on that when it comes to politics and trying to understand the underlying dynamics – follow the money. We’ve never really believed that because it is difficult to actually believe the people you know and want to respect make their decisions; take their stands; argue for hours, days, months for something, not because they believe in what they are saying, defending, promoting, but because it will bring big dollars into their bank accounts.

It is time to believe that and stop blocking our thoughts by giving everyone the benefit of the doubt.

We’ve known about former Senator Danforth and his backing of Clarence Thomas for quite some time. We have also known that he continued that kind of political machination to get Josh Hawley elected to the Senate. What we did not know was the involvement of John Thiel -lots of money John Thiel.

What we are also connecting is the influence John Thiel and his money have on those investing in the businesses which are and have become the billion dollar businesses – with their founding and hard work to develop the ideas done by and stolen from women and minorities to make sure young white males, mostly northern-european-ancestry-types, but also a small handful of males from other groups to keep the monied people in those outlying groups merging with his to control the world and Make America White Again. At least the Amazon founder is upfront with his need to become emperor of the world. John Thiel, one could say, roughly parallels the Wizard of Oz.

What we search for today is to know those who work with John Thiel to keep the world mostly white-male-northern-european-ancestry people.

Mr. Thiel apparently does have a lock politically on the Republican Party. The orange blow-hard at the top simply follows orders – from what we can tell.

While many of us look at Donald Trump as the one to whom Republican politicians are pledging their fealty, Donald Trump does not have the money to keep them loyal. Some have claimed it is Putin and Company. We are wondering if it is not John Thiel who is causing this mischief.

Many are looking today and worrying about what is and will happen to the women and children in Afghanistan. We are looking and worrying about what will happen to American women and children. We are seeing the same kind of crack down, happening in Afghanistan, coming to the women of America. Starting with the abortion issue and moving on from there to roll back the gains minorities and women have made including Brown v Board of Education.

Donald Trump’s slogan – “Make America Great Again” – which many believed was actually the public face of the real slogan which was and is “Make America White Again”. That slogan was stolen from Ronald Reagan and his time in politics and in political office. That was also a time when racism reared its ugly head and gains were rolled back. Strangely enough it was also used by Bill Clinton of “don’t ask don’t tell fame.”

One of our founders tells us how quickly the racism under the table surfaced when Reagan made his first run for office. She was Republican then and precinct chair in Wayzata, Minnesota – the area that was the bastion of some of Minnesota and the country’s elites. Into the meeting came all of these Texans – all new to the area. That would not have meant much to you then, but how much does it mean today when you see the damage Texas is trying to do to the civil rights of all the “wrong” people. The damage Texas is doing to “Make America White and Male Again.” We could go back even further in Texas’ racist history to bring up the story of the Texans who went to the prison camps and checked out a Nazi prisoner on a Sunday to take them to dinner. They were taken to restaurants which refused to serve African American soldiers unless they came around to the back door of the restaurant and didn’t eat inside, but in the yard outside with the garbage and other unhappy scenes, or left the area with their food to eat someplace else entirely.

When Marceline entered the room as precinct chair there was an audible gasp and the ugliness and racism that immediately surged was so obvious the natives experienced shock. Some of the Texans were newly working in Minnesota, some were there, not for jobs, but for the Republican Campaign to support Reagans candidacy.

Reagan was not elected during that precinct meeting, but Marceline was removed as precinct chair and Reagan was elected during the next such meeting four years later. The ground work was done in that precinct caucus – they just had to wait four years for their work to grow and spread itself across the country and it did.

All of that was supported by someone’s money. All of what is happening today around Trump and this Republican Party is being supported by someone’s money.

We are looking at John Thiel as the organizer of the money behind Trump. Et tu?

FACEBOOK, AirBNB and all the other startups turned billion dollar corporations!

Monday, October 4th, 2021

There are some things we know, but do not talk about. We flesh out our knowing with hypocrisy, lies, reasons which we know are false and more.

For example, we know there are minuscule amounts of minorities who receive investment money for their startups and lets include women in that group. We don’t really stop to analyze what, why, how to change things.

At Bettina’s we became involved in all of this when – and you know the story by now – the Capital Network, a group funded by and involved with the City of Cambridge – sent three white males to one of the homes in the Bettina Network, inc. – to see what they were doing and to steal the idea and anything else they could in the process.

It was Cambridge working its structural racism making sure a black-owned business, with great potential, did not succeed in its territory. It was Cambridge pulling on its structural racism, solidly in place today, to force blacks who were moving too far too fast to back down and/or move out.

Out of that came AirBnB. A company whose founders used several stealth ways to steal from Bettina’s. The Business Plan; by sending people in to steal as much more as possible; whenever they ran into something they couldn’t fathom, more calls to Bettina’s without identifying who or what to keep their business idea looking as though it was really theirs….and on and on. A prototype for business development in this society.

At the time, Bettina people were going to the Thursday afternoon meetings of the Capital Network, inc. trying to understand and apply for and get better acquainted with the “investor class.”

That was a waste of time.

After the visit of the three guys who had never before been to a bed & breakfast, talked about not even knowing private homes could be put together in a Network, etc. etc. Bettina people went to the next Thursday afternoon gathering of the Capital Network and were surprised to see their company name had been taken down and they were held at the door because they were no longer listed as part of the group.

Someone who knew Bettina’s appeared and re-entered Bettina’s as a part of this group with their name appearing on the board letting people know they were “in the space”. An “oversight” they said. Even though Bettina’s was at the Thursday meeting the previous week and the one before that, etc. they were ‘unintentionally’ dropped.

As we discovered a few years later, substantial investment money was given to the three white guys forming AirBnB and the black folks – male and female – developing Bettina’s were totally cut out and had to fight for their continued existence, fighting one swipe across the bow after another, rather than continuing to move ahead with their business, which was growing substantially.

Friends began to appear talking about their problems, not knowing that Bettina’s was going through the same thing. These friends start-ups, which were right on the verge of expanding exponentially, but without the funds to do so and able to expanding only on current income, which we all know doesn’t work – caught our attention and time to research asking the question what do we have in common?

“This” – was and is the way this society maintains itself as northern european-ancestry white males.

Seeing and following that bit of structural racism, we tried everything but the system was tight, immovable and carefully constructed to eliminate and destroy anyone trying to do something different. Something different is and was to attempt to build a new business idea into a billion dollar plus business. Anything which looked as though it had that potential was stolen and the minority and female founders were put through horrendous experiences to handicap their following through with what looked to everyone as fantastic. Not only was their business handicapped with few to no investors of substances, but their daily lives were destroyed in as vile and ugly a way as possible to keep them from being able to wind up being competition.

At the same time we noticed a parallel occurrence. There were white males treated the same way. Not as crudely, but there were similarities. For example, Facebook – was founded on an ethical fault line. Like AirBnB this was not Zuckerberg’s idea, it was one he stole from others and promoted as his own. When all of this became public, it was ignored and had little to no affect on the growth of Facebook. It certainly did not slow down or dampen investor enthusiasm.

Given its unethical beginnings where was it supposed to go and how was it supposed to get that unethical mess out of its structure? That does not happen, it just grows with the business and that is what has happened.

These were not just “thefts” by people on the outside looking in who saw something, picked up the core idea and went on their own to fill in the rest. This was “theft” in the crudest way which screamed to all who could hear the very unethical way it was done. This spoke volumes about the ethics of those involved.

What we saw was that unethical base of those doing the stealing was what the “investors” – conscious of it or not – were looking for in an entrepreneur they would fund. Take a look around and see the history.

Today we have people speaking out loud and clear with proof about the highly unethical way of Facebook. What we don’t understand is why the surprise? That has been known for quite some time and has been pointed out to the many. The result – you could almost hear the cheers as Zuckerberg was embraced as one of our own. He could be “trusted” to be someone who develops and developed a company which could almost be called the Devil’s Spawn.

We are a society which has developed “big” businesses on the most evil platforms. That seems to be what the West Coast investor class looks for as do all the rest. That is not done above board, but the choices made show clearly the ethical base of those doing the choosing.

We are watching and experiencing horribleness because of those beginnings – and – the history is carefully ignored with claims that this history is irrelevant as the company has grown. And yes, it has grown but its beginnings are structured into the company because that willingness to do whatever it took is a foul beginning which takes on a life of its own within the corporate structure. We seem to be programmed to blot that out and try to achieve a good result from that kind of beginning. Is that our laziness or our evil side.

In the Christian Scripture there is a story of Satan tempting Jesus with all kinds of earthly delights. He takes none of them but sticks to the business about which he has come. It seems that from this story there has come a long line of people who called out to Satan asking to be given the same choices. They were and this is the result.

There is an unwritten, not talked about agreement amongst investors who get such companies off the ground that monies will be spent developing businesses which have structured bigotry into their corporate forms, boardrooms, etc. and which have structured – anything goes if it gets us where we want to go let the ethics of what we are doing be damned. We are smart enough to give back an intellectualized reason which sounds good to deflect, at least as long as we need to deflect, those who would hold up to the general universe what we are doing which is and will continue to hurt our world, our galaxy and put our human species in jeopardy of extermination by itself.

May God’s judgment be swift and sure.


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