Best Cherry Sauce Evah!

Ok, this happened by accident and it is delicious! You can double this if you want. You're gonna want.

2 cups real, fresh cherries, pitted and cut up coarsely; Soak overnight in 1/2 cup white wine.

In a small saucepan, put 1/2 cup white sugar, 1C water and 1 proper tsp of REAL vanilla. Over high heat, stir until the sugar melts, then add the cherries and the juice. Turn the heat down to medium to keep the boil going and let the stuff boil until it starts to thicken a bit. Keep stirring or it will stick/burn. Yuck.

In the meantime, with a potato masher, mash the cherries into smaller bits. Leave it chunky but just smaller chunky.

Once it's a bit thick, pull it off the heat and let it cool down. It will thicken up a bit more. When it's barely warm, eat over vanilla ice cream and then call me and tell me you love me.

Photo courtesy www.producedepot.ca

The Frenzy of the Pampered Middle Class

I got this gem via email this morning... it is, first of all, utter bullshit. The question attached to the message below was "Do you think this is true?"

Hi all,

I just had a long chat yesterday with Mike's cousin who is a doctor working closely with the epidemiologists and infectious disease specialists in BC to prepare the province's pandemic preparedness plan. She scared me! She told me that the flu is expected to hit by September and the LOW estimate of global deaths is 28 million this fall. Her biggest advice was to stockpile food and over the counter meds like tylenol and advil, have several months' worth of any prescriptions you need, stock up on alcohol-based hand sanitizers and also to boost your vitamin D by taking 5000 IU/day as studies are showing that flu-fatalities are less in those with good solid D levels. I am passing all this info to everyone I know...I figure we don't all have pandemic experts in our midsts and we certainly don't always know what to believe in the media.

No, I do NOT think it - or anything that is currently being foisted upon the amazingly gullible, stupid, media gulping, spoiled, never-uses-its-brain middle class regarding "swine" flu is true.

No, this could not be.

H1N1 is a mutation of influenza A, which circulates in some form every year. The interesting thing about H1N1 is the soon-to-be available ‘treatment.’ The company that is producing the ‘cure’ has actually been stockpiling it since 2006 and has made several references to ‘outbreak’ and ‘pandemic’ in their press releases – of 2006 and 2007.

The other interesting thing is what happened last time that company produced a ‘cure.’ In 1976, the last time there was an H1N1 outbreak, more people died from the ‘cure’ than from the drug – many more in fact.

Media and other coverage of this year’s pandemic is nothing more than a planned frenzy to provide the environment for what amounts to human testing on a mass scale of this company’s new cure, which may or may not work. It will NOT work as well as simply washing one’s hands. Period.

As with all airborne flues, the best, best treatments are these:

• WASH your hands often.
• When you cough/sneeze, do so into the crook of your elbow so that wet particles don’t land on your hands, which end up on surfaces and doorknobs, which will be touched by others.
• Never touch your hands to your mouth, nose and eyes unless you are sure your hands are clean: mucous and wet membranes are the most effective points of entry for any virus.
• WASH. This cannot be stressed enough. Wash your hands.
• Yes carry hand sanitizers but remember they dry the skin leaving it open to cracking and hence making it susceptible to infection via small wounds.

As to overdosing on vitamin D, I’d be really careful about that. Vitamin D is not easily managed by the body when it is ingested via pills. It is much more easily managed by simple exposure – 15 minutes to 30 minutes a day – of SUNLIGHT. Go outside.

Stockpile Advil??? Seriously? C’mon.

As to the figure of 28 million, seriously folks. 16,000 children die EVERY DAY from starvation and you don’t see the drug companies getting all ‘jiggy’ about that. 207 in the US die A DAY from smoking and about that number will die, also in the US, also A DAY from alcohol-related accidents – and four of those A DAY will die because of a drunk driver.

This "swine flu" thing is seriously stupid.

Here's one of the replies I got back from my email - and yes, I want your comments too so get on it!

"Amen,

I’m so tired of the “Panic of the Pampered” that we’re all guilty of falling into here in the West (me guilty too).

We’re so quick to fall prey to the media’s obsession with the “shiny” new FEAR INC. “product” (and I say Fear Inc. “product” because a good segment of our private/public capitalism machine runs exclusively on fear. The more the better. And they’ve found an endless supply of gullible customers in the pampered enclaves of western society. Yes, I know other cultures have their own weird-ass beliefs... and many less fortunate societies have much to be concerned about. But WE, HERE have no excuse to be so infantile and gutless in succumbing to the artificially packaged nonsense).

It’s so easy to chase our tails on the latest new “sky is falling” craze. Should we be prudent and practical? YES. Should we even be concerned sometimes...? SURE. But sweet Jebus... maybe we should take some responsibility for the REAL issues -- instead of dropping our pants for every hot news item. Like truly... THOUSANDS die of regular flu every year and you never hear no world wide frenzy. ‘Cause there ain’t much more money to be made off that one. So those battles can be fought by the yearly pharmaceutical ad campaigns. We don’t need to bring our good corporate partners CNN in on that one!

But, back to the real issues... There are a whole bunch of things that will definitely KILL us with more absolute certainty and regularity than an extra flu bug. Like excess in all its forms... bad diet esp... too much fat, sugar, salt, BOOZE, DRUGS, bad chemicals, smokin’, drinkin’, drivin’ fast.. too much stress. Or the flip side... lack of sleep, lack of exercise etc. Yeah, but we don’t hear too much about that because that would entail a huge prescription of PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. Which is not a good “product” to sell a pampered society on.

Okay... that’s my rant for the day. Back to work. And oops... better start taking my own advice... Uh... I’ll start tomorrow...

BA

p.s. I hear “FOOD INC.” is an amazing movie that may keep u from ever eating packaged goods again. Like forever. If we even remotely cared about what we actually put in our mouths - and where it actually came from - we really would have somethin’ to get all pandemicky about...

Bikes

Photos from this weekend's Harley Owners Group meeting at Calgary's Military Museums

Photos are copyright, Julie Vincent Photography

Visit my site for further information and to purchase prints of anything you see here.

If you print these and/or use them anywhere without my permission, I will be really angry AND I will take action, so better to just ask, OK?

Thanks.

Some stuff I shot.

I had a dream. Tu me manque tellement....

When I was in 11th grade, my French teacher, Mr. Lawrence, organised an exchange for our class to Montreal. At the time - I'm sure Mr. Trudeau was still in the PMO that year - the Canadian government encouraged and financially supported such exchanges because, at the time, east/west relations in Canada were pretty crusty... Oh wait. that still happens.

Anyway, we were billeted with families whose kids attended Polyvalente Jeanne-Mance. I was billeted with a gal, Manon, who had a brother, Stephane, who had a best friend, who I fell completely in love with the second he walked in the door. I was 16 and he was 15 ...

After that exchange, I went back to Montreal for the summer. I stayed with him - which is to say in his parent's house. It was utterly glorious. The city I live in is large but 30 years ago, not so much. Montreal on the other hand; wow. Add to the incredible soul of that city a boy (he was much a man even then) who loved his city, his culture and his language and was more than willing to share it all and it was a heady, wonderful experience.

We were together four years, amazingly enough for such young people, and eventually moved together back to my city. I cannot imagine why such a young man would consent to drive all the way across the country but that we did. And that's where it all started to go bad.

If you've been in here before you will have gleaned a bit about my mother...

My boyfriend and I had lived together by this time over 2 years. My mother would have nothing of that so he found a basement suite not too far from us, in the home of a very elderly - and deaf-ish - woman from our church.

I didn't know the woman well at all - I knew her for a long time but I was only 20 at the time and she was very old so yeah, we weren't out drinking together very often.... Most importantly, I didn't know that she didn't care a hoot what was going on in her basement suite as long as the house wasn't burning down.

My mother is obsessed with EVERYTHING that other people are doing, especially if it happens to involve sex. I grew up in a very, very sick environment where it concerns sex so, the idea of doing it with my boyfriend in the house of a woman from my church, someone who knew my mother, utterly, utterly freaked me out. Badly.

Not surprisingly, some weeks on, both he and I were, let's say, grumpy as hell.

Meanwhile, I was living at home, missing my life in Montreal terribly and, much worse, missing my boyfriend intensely and suffering - and I mean suffering - the daily barrage of my mother's insanity.

About four months after we moved back to my city, things had got to a crisis. Without one knowing my mother, it's impossible to understand why I would have capitulated but that's what usually happens to people who are abused. Finally laying down and letting one's soul perish is the only means of staying borderline sane. So when my crazy mother suggested that, because my lovely, sweet, helpful boyfriend was helping his landlady's gay son move, that he was also gay, I bit.

Imagine you are a puppy. For a couple days, your new owners are happy to have you around. But shortly, reality sets in and your owners decide that the best place for you is out of their hair and into a small crate, into which they poke a stick many times a day. After some months, you are confused, angry and sore from being endlessly prodded, mind and body. That's what living with my mother was like, so, when she observed that my boyfriend was probably gay and actually hated me, I was furious. But she is so crazy and such a stranger to reason that there was no way to fight her (I wanted to kill her, truth be known) so I lashed out at him.

I regret what I said to this day - and this day is 30 years on.

He and I broke up very soon after that. He went on to meet and eventually marry a woman he met out here and had two sons with her. I also married - a disaster, but that's another blog. With perhaps the exception of the first three months I was married, I dreamt of him every month after. EVERY. Always dreams that we were friends and close and always warm and comforting and, as much as I always woke from those dreams missing him terribly, I was glad to dream, regardless.

Six years ago, I had the opportunity to travel to Montreal. I had kept in very, very limited contact with his wife, so hadn't entirely lost touch but I was terrified to call him, mostly because I was so embarrassed at what I'd said to him all those years prior. Regardless. I called his house, left a message and died a thousand deaths of embarrassment because I instantly regretted the call....

But he rang me back at the hotel I was staying at - also leaving a message - and said, to my utter wonderment, that he was glad I'd called and was surprised at how good my French still was.

He asked if we could meet for coffee so I rang him back and agreed to meet him on the south shore.

I would say it was awkward but not in the "why are we doing this" way. More for the many years of unsaid words on my part, I guess. Anyway, because it had been eating me for so many years, I was happy to have an opportunity to say I was sorry and to thank him for what he'd blessed with with (a very functional second language) and that I was very glad to see him.

I suppose it sounds stupid after so many years had passed but I really, really needed to apologise for what I'd said to him. He said he didn't remember and regardless, he held nothing against me - which didn't surprise me because I didn't know him as one who would hold a grudge. I could write volumes on this man, who was a man long before most young men are.

The reason my French was and still is good, by the way, is that he was a brilliant and patient teacher, who spent hours teaching me how to get my English tongue around French vowel and consonant combinations. Yes, I hear what you're thinking and yeah, that too...

After that meeting, to my great sadness, I stopped dreaming of him. I was glad to have had the chance to apologize and clear the air but I was devastated the dreams stopped. Until last night.

Earlier in the day I had been to my sister's. She lives in an 850 square foot house on land less than 300 feet from where my mother also lives in a huge, empty, echoing rancher. I didn't see my mother - another blog - but being in the vicinity of that insanity screws me up for days. I never know what will surface from contact - or near-contact in this case.

Earlier this year, I went searching on FaceBook on the off chance my old boyfriend would be on there. FB hasn't been hugely popular in the east until recently, so I didn't expect to find him, but there he was. So I popped him a note. And he replied... and then we talked for an hour on a messaging service.

Last night, I had a vivid and endless dream. I was utterly shocked to wake up and find myself here, in this place, and to realise it was only a dream, so much so that I felt tears of disappointment coming.

I don't know what it all means but, as unbelievably guilty as I feel about it all - because I have a wonderful spouse - I'm glad the dreams are back. How is it possible to miss someone so deeply when they've been out of a life for so long?

King of Pop is diamonds in the rough. Litterally.

Update:

Dean VandenBiesen has been very generous with his information to me and has provided this update:

The diamonds being made from Michael Jackson's hair have not been requested yet by anyone in the Jackson family; however, VandenBiesen says, "If the family is interested, particularly Jackson’s kids we will give them the opportunity." BandenBiesen said he didn't know yet either whether Catherine Jackson would want a one of the diamonds.

VandenBiesen confirms that LifeGem will publish photos of the diamonds - there are 10 planned - will be published on the LifeGem website.

LifeGem is at www.lifegem.com

The Diamond of the Pop world will be come diamonds in the real world.

Diamond company, LifeGem says it will turn a lock of Michael Jackson's hair into 10 diamonds.

Company founder, Dean VandenBiesen, confirms that an article in today's Daily News is legitimate and that the company will use hair retrieved from Jackson's horrific Pepsi commercial fire tragedy in 1984.

Vandenbiesen said the video footage from the commercial clearly shows a man throwing an Armani suit jacket over Jackson's burning scalp.

Shortly after, the same man is seen retrieving a lock of hair from the floor. A photo on the LifeGem website seems to show the Jacket and a square of paper on which a lock of hair is placed.

LifeGem says it needs only a relatively small amount of biological material to create a gem. "We only need 200 miligrams to create a 1 carat diamond. In this case, we have enough to easily make 10," Vandenbiesen says.

As to whether the hair is actually Jackson's, Dean said that based on the footage and verification by someone he calls 'the most famous hair collector in the world,' they are confident what they have is the real thing. However, Dean says the hair has not been DNA tested. He did not comment on whether that testing was planned.

According to a report in the on-line publication Orato, that surfaced days after Jackson's death, Gunther Von Hagens, anatomist and inventor of the plastination process and originator of Bodyworlds claims he will plastinate Michael Jackson's body.

The report claimed that von Hagens had been in talks with the Jackson family in the months prior to Michael Jackson's death and that permission had been granted for Jackson's body to undergo the procees in the event of his death. However, scandal rag TMZ, which was first to report Michael Jackson's death, claims the Orato report is false.

According to TMZ.com, "The director of publicity for Dr. Gunther von Hagens tells TMZ someone claiming to be from Jackson's management team did contact BodyWorlds several months ago about Jackson's interest in being preserved in plastic.

Although she says, "We can further confirm that Mr. Jackson is not now a registered body donor in the Institute for Plastination's Body Donation Program," the director does not categorically deny contact, nor did she state the Jackson family has denied the possibility, leaving much open to question.

END PROHIBITION NOW

Welcome back... I've been away... Twitter...y'know.

So, I committed to writing an article about cannabis, Marc Emery and about the laws in Canada. I knew when I committed that it would be a huge endeavour to compile all of that into 1200 words. I didn't succeed by the way. I'm at 1500 and something and there's a book left to write.

If you've been reading me for a while you may have caught a shift in my thinking. It happened about 2.5 years ago when my friends son (My Son That I Stole) was living with me while he was at school in our city. He's a regular toker and I, not knowing my ass from a hole in the ground on the subject of pot, was on a mission to prove to him that he was killing his braincells and himself from smoking weed.

After five hours of research, I had to go to him and apologise because everything I thought I knew was utter, unmitigated garbage.

Since then, I've read and read and read and the more I read, the more angry I am at the 'establishment' and what they're doing to people in my country. It's worse in the US but at least Hilary Clinton has admitted - this week in fact - that the US war on drugs is a colossal failure. Good. She's dead right about that.

Today I spoke to Jodi Emery, Marc Emery's wife. Marc's being extradited to the US, not for selling pot and not for selling seeds but for conspiracy. The Canadian Government had the option of keeping this man, a Canadian citizen, in Canada post sentencing (which, by the way shouldn't be happening at all***). But they declined and now a Canadian is going to the US to be tried under US law. HOW does THAT happen???

After speaking to Jodi, I was not only pissed off - not at her: she's a fighter - but at what's happening in Canada now but what the Harper 'government' has planned. Mandatory minimums. If those are established, you, YES YOU, could be charge with trafficking pot for something as simple as passing a joint or a baggie to someone else. Yes, passing it. AND you would then be subject to a minimum sentence of ? 18 months?

AND, the government then has the right to take your stuff - your house, your assets and your kids. I know. Sounds impossible but it isn't.

Now, for all of you who are sitting there going "well, if you smoke pot, you deserve what you get," Stop.

Cannabis has been used for eons and centuries. Until the US and Canada wanted to get rid of certain immigrant populations, it was legal in both countries. It wasn't even on the radar until the Mexican itinerant workers in the US in the '30s and the Chinese, who came to build the Canadian trans continental railway, started to bug the politicians in the respective countries. Then? WHAM! Criminalise pot. Since then, the machine has done everything it can to demonise a plant.

Well, it's addictive you say? No, it isn't. It may be habit forming for some, but so is having a glass of wine a day or two beers a day. Oh, wait; that's not correct. Alcohol IS addictive. Pot is not. (www.drugwarfacts.org)

Well, it's a gateway drug you say? No, it is not. in a US study that is now four or five years old, over 147,000,000 (yes, that's million) people in the US admitted to having used pot and a large percentage of those were 'last month' users. If pot were a gateway, then one would assume an equally large percentage of people would be using heroin or coke but they aren't. A very small portion of the population uses those drugs. If there's a gateway, it is nicotine or alcohol, both of which have a median first use age of 16 years. Pot? 17.5 years. (www.drugwarfacts.org)

It's cancer causing you say? Nope. Wrong again. If it were, the cancer industry would be on it like a pack of hounds and police forces everywhere would be hauling out the corpses. There aren't any. None.

Well, people die from it you think. No, they don't. A study on www.drugwarfacts.org clearly shows a ZERO for deaths from pot.

There are 5 recorded deaths in the UK between 1998 and 2004 (I'm pulling dates from memory; stats on www.drugwarfacts.org). It is not clear at all, however, what part, if any, cannabis played in those deaths. It looks like none.

Well, pot's way more dangerous than alcohol, right? No. Stoned people don't drive, don't fight, don't beat their wives (OK or their husbands or partners), aren't aggressive, don't commit crimes. In fact, people who are drunk but think the can still drive won't drive if they consume some weed. For some reason, weed even gives drunks enough clarity to keep them out of a car. Other studies also say that stoned drivers are more cautious, have much greater following distances, drive more slowly and are, well, paranoid and less likely to get behind the wheel at all anyway.

Did you know that the chemical composition of Ritalin is very, very close to cocaine? Yeah, like a couple molecules different. We give Ritalin to kids!!! Children are consuming a cocaine-like drug to keep them calm? What the F?

Did you know that over 1000 people die in the US annually - from Tylenol?

Did you know that some 45,000 people are killed due to alcohol in the US annually and that 15,500 of those are killed by drunk drivers? Yes. Killed by a stoned driver? NONE.

Well, pot kills brain cells! Yes, perhaps, but so does sitting in traffic, breathing disgusting exhaust fumes; so does drinking a couple pints; so does falling on your head when you're skiing; so does lack of sleep; so does blowing your nose too hard. What's your point? The brain has an almost unlimited capacity to regenerate cells and dendrites and nodes. There are a bunch of documented cases of people losing half their brain tissue and still leading perfectly fine, functional, use-of-all-appendages lives.

Well, pot sucks up your motivation drive. No, whatever is that hellishly wrong in your life that you want to be stoned 24/7 sucks your motivation and drive. Pot dulls the pain but the problem isn't pot. It's not solving the problem that's the problem.

OK. I'm done. I'm tired and I'm angry and I'm disappointed that so many people default to what they think they know rather than finding out.

So. Read.

WWW.DRUGWARFACTS.ORG This is a searchable database of studies.
It's the oracle. Ask questions. Go search. Please educate yourself; so many in power won't
www.theunionmovie.com
Woody Harrelson's "Grass"

Who funds "Partnership for Drug free America?" - The tobacco and liquor industries.

Prohibition creates crimewaves.

Respect

I just had what ended as a very sad conversation with my daughter about respect.

I raised my kids to acknowledged people and to say thanks when someone does something kind to or for them. Apparently, I am out of line expecting adults to, at least, acknowledge when I do a kindness for them.

In the case of strangers or near strangers, I'm often baffled when they can't manage a "thanks," but in the case of my niece, I'm full on offended and saying so to my daughter, who is very, very close to my niece and always has been, caused my daughter to hang up on me.

I am amazed at - and happy about - the extent to which my daughter will go to to support and defend her cousin. It's confirmation that to a large extent, how I feel people should treat each other has sunk in with her.

What's sad, though, is that I'm not sure that same defence comes my way.

Earlier this year, my niece spent nearly 30 days essentially living in my house, eating my food, using our utilities. During that month, we travelled by car seven hours to visit my daughter. I asked for gas money and told my niece that food was her responsibility. She didn't ante up more than $25 for the entire week, gas, food lodgings.

Neither here nor there did she lift a finger. She didn't wash a dish; she didn't offer to buy food; she didn't - not once - say "Thanks Auntie, I know I've been here a lot."

I was annoyed to be sure but I let it go. I know this kid and I know she's not concious of how she's acting. Her parents have spoiled her bloody rotten - not her fault - so she's as close to incapable of realising that she's a sucker fish.

What sent me over was an incident about six weeks later, when we ran into her at the local grocery store. This kid has never ever suffered for money, thanks to parents are generous, very much to a fault and who've spoiled their kids. So when I discovered my neice going through my grocery cart, eating food that I needed at home and that I hadn't yet paid for, I was furious and insulted and disgusted. I wrote her an explained why I was so annoyed. She didn't bother to respond. I know she recieved that message - she discussed it with someone else - so I'm even more annoyed that she didn't acknowledge to me.

My daugther and I were talking about it this morning and she, rightfully so, suggested I let it go because, despite my being appaled at my neice's behaviour, there is nothing I can do to change it.

My question is at what point is someone old enough to acknowledge that despite their having a right to live their life as they wish, they will offend people and that they are, I think, responsble for at the very least acknowledging when they've pissed somone off. I also think adults don't take endlessly and that they don't take other people for granted.

That statement caused my daughter to hang up on me. I must say I'm angry and confused and I feel really, really trampled upon, not only by my neice, for whom I've utterly lost respect, but by my daughter who will so intensely defend her spoiled cousin but who would not rise to my defense.

Am I wrong to expect at the least an acknowledgement?

I think not.

FINALLY; The mainstream begins to question....

I just want to say how THRILLED I am that the mainstream is beginning to ask questions about 9/11.

Click to hear what an architect has to say:


I also want to say this:

There is NO way that three state-of-the art buildings - all constructed to withstand an endless raft of possible attacks, fires and other damage - all fall straight down into their own footprints on the same day due to a 'terrorist' attack. NO way.

There is no way that a man in a cave had access to Thermite of any kind.

Jet fuel does not burn hot enough to melt steel.

A 757 CANNOT hit a building, leave only a 16 foot hole, utterly disintegrate but leave enough biological matter to identify passengers by their fingerprints. THAT could NOT have happened.

There was no plane and there were no bodies, seats, debris, suitcases or parts of any aircraft in the field at Shanksville. THAT event did NOT happen.

Many people have accused me of wearing a tinfoil hat (meaning I'm a weird conspiracist). Well, I'd rather wear tin foil than choose the blindness the US government has perpetrated on its people.

9/11 is the most significant false flag incident in the last 50 years. The other two were Tonkin and Pearl Harbour. Both of those incidents were designed to get the US voting public on board with wars - Vietnam and WWII. Both those false flag incidents were highly successful - assuming you're ok with killing millions of people for profit.

9/11 is no different.

BLINDERS OFF!