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Terrific Tunes… Tasty Food… It’s Foodstock!!! Saturday at Elks Lodge

Published

5 years ago

6 minute read

Rob Lamonica

Terrific tunes and tasty fare for a great cause – gearing up for Foodstock

By Mark Weber 

A partnership between the Red Deer Food Bank and the Central Music Festival Society continues to not only spread the joy of music but also helps meet a critical need in the community.

Foodstock runs Sept. 14th.

There will be plenty of food, festivities and a ‘mini-international’ music festival at the Elks Lodge featuring the exemplary talents of David Essig, Nine Second Ride, Rob Lamonica, Laurelle, and the mesmerizing magic of Kyle Key.

The fun kicks off at 5 p.m. and runs through to 11 p.m.

As the Society’s web site points out, ‘Thousands are expected to pack the parking lot with donations (for the Food Bank) while feasting on the Red Deer Food Bank BBQ Crue’s sizzling fare.”

At 7 p.m. the music starts inside and runs through to around 11 p.m. All profits go to the Red Deer Food Bank.

Tickets are $30 each in advance or $35 at the door. Kids aged 12 and under are admitted free when with a responsible adult.

“Our goal for this event is to raise over $5,000 for the Red Deer Food Bank to help meet the demand for the holiday season,” said Mike Bradford, president of the Central Music Festival Society.

“We like to create a festive atmosphere,” he explained, pointing out that stilt walkers will be onsite to showcase their skills as well.

“They will also be giving lessons to interested kids on shorter stilts.”

After everyone eats and takes in the fun outside, the tunes kick off in the Elks Lodge.

“If you look around, and you are in a position to help somebody out, the very basic need for all of us is food,” he added. “That’s what it’s all about.  “So in my mind, it’s just a way of giving back to the community,” he said.  Indeed, it’s a service that is always in high demand as well.  “There is no shame in needing a helping hand.”

The partnership at the annual Foodstock event also led to the Food Bank setting up at Central Music Festival Society shows through the year as well. The Society also matches Food Bank financial contributions dollar for dollar, said Bradford.

To date, close to $9,000 has been raised. “It’s something that has worked out pretty well for both of us! If we can help out, we are glad to do it.”

Feedback from all sides has always been fantastic, he added.

It’s a rewarding experience for Society volunteers to be a part of and the Food Bank is always very happy for the solid support of course. The musicians are also thrilled to pool their efforts behind such a great community cause as well.

“It’s also about raising the awareness of the Food Bank. Anyone can fall on hard times, and anyone can lend a helping hand.

“We are all human, and we have to get through this life together.”

As for the folks at the Food Bank, they couldn’t be more pleased – or thankful – about this terrific partnership.

“It’s been a tremendous relationship, and it’s been ongoing for a couple of years now,” said Fred Scaife, executive director of the Red Deer Food Bank.

“They invite us to all of their events, too,” he noted, pointing out that Food Bank representatives, as mentioned, are at performances through the year to receive donations from patrons and also make further connections in the community.

“And the shows are always so good!”

But ultimately, Scaife emphasized that it’s partnerships like these that really help to make such a critical difference in the day-to-day operations of the Food Bank.

And with Foodstock, the timing of the event couldn’t be better as food and financial reserves at the Food Bank can be running quite low at that point of the year, said Scaife.  “Not only does it give us an opportunity to solicit some donations that we need at that time of year, it also gives us the opportunity to be in front of the public,” he noted.

Scaife also explained that the consistent support of the Central Music Festival Society is what helps with the unpredictable nature of collecting food and funds through the year for the charity.

“It’s such a good, solid relationship. It’s great for us.”

For more info and tickets… www.centralmusicfest.com

 

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After 15 years as a TV reporter with Global and CBC and as news director of RDTV in Red Deer, Duane set out on his own 2008 as a visual storyteller. During this period, he became fascinated with a burgeoning online world and how it could better serve local communities. This fascination led to Todayville, launched in 2016.

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JK Rowling dares Scottish police to arrest her over new ‘hate crime’ law threatening free speech

Published on April 2, 2024

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From LifeSiteNews

By Calvin Freiburger

‘If what I’ve written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment,’ the ‘Harry Potter’ creator said.

Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling is striking a defiant tone in the face of a new Scottish law that many fear will effectively criminalize free speech on subjects such as biological sex and “gender identity.”

The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act, passed in 2021 but only now taking effect, consolidates various preexisting “hate crime” statutes while also creating a new offense, “threatening or abusive behaviour which is intended to stir up hatred” on the basis of age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity, or variations in sex characteristics.

As covered by The Guardian and The Scotsman, various individuals and groups have raised objections to the law, including MP Joanna Cherry, who predicts it “will be weaponized by trans rights activists to try to silence, and worse still criminalize, women who do not share their beliefs”; said the Scottish Family Party, who says it will mean the “death” of free speech; and the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents and Scottish Police Federation, who fear it will overtax police forces inadequately trained to handle the influx of new offenses.

Scotland First Minister Humza Yousaf, who championed the law, insists that abuse will be prevented by a “very high threshold” for prosecuting cases and protects freedom of expression in a variety of ways, including a “reasonableness” defense. Ex-Tory MSP Adam Tomkins claims that simply “asserting that sex is a biological fact or that it is not changed just by virtue of the gender by which someone chooses to identify is not and never can be a hate crime under this legislation.”

Such assurances hit a snag, however, when calls to prosecute Rowling under the law prompted Scotland’s Community Safety Minister Siobhian Brown to walk back her initial assurances that “misgendering” would “not at all” violate the law, The Telegraph reported. “It could be reported and it could be investigated,” she said, “whether or not the police would think it was criminal is up to Police Scotland for that.”

On Monday, Rowling shared a lengthy Twitter/X thread of examples of “trans women” (i.e., men) and pro-LGBT activists she suggested were now a “protected category” despite their violent, abusive acts and/or hateful behavior, using the hashtag #ArrestMe to effectively dare the authorities to persecute her.

“The new legislation is wide open to abuse by activists who wish to silence those of us speaking out about the dangers of eliminating women’s and girls’ single-sex spaces, the nonsense made of crime data if violent and sexual assaults committed by men are recorded as female crimes, the grotesque unfairness of allowing males to compete in female sports, the injustice of women’s jobs, honours and opportunities being taken by trans-identified men, and the reality and immutability of biological sex,” she wrote. “For several years now, Scottish women have been pressured by their government and members of the police force to deny the evidence of their eyes and ears, repudiate biological facts and embrace a neo-religious concept of gender that is unprovable and untestable.”

“I’m currently out of the country, but if what I’ve written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment,” Rowling added.

Rowling, whose Potter novels are the best-selling book series in the world, has long been known as a doctrinaire liberal on most issues, in 2007 going so far as to retroactively add a same-sex relationship to the backstory of Harry’s mentor Albus Dumbledore, despite the character’s sexual attraction not being referenced in the books themselves or their film adaptations (until briefly being alluded to in the third film of the Fantastic Beasts spinoff series).

Even so, Rowling has been deemed a bigot by pro-LGBT activists for refusing to go along with the notions that gender is a social construct that may be changed at will, or that life-altering surgical or chemical “transition” procedures are appropriate for confused minors. In recent years, despite intense cultural pressure, she has only grown bolder in opposing the transgender lobby’s detrimental impacts on children as well as actual women.

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Entertainment

Elon Musk funds conservative actress Gina Carano’s wrongful termination lawsuit against Disney

Published on February 11, 2024

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From LifeSiteNews

By Doug Mainwaring

‘As a sign of X Corp’s commitment to free speech, we’re proud to provide financial support for Gina Carano’s lawsuit,’ said X’s head of business operations.

Actress Gina Carano is suing Disney-owned Lucasfilm for wrongful termination from Star Wars: The Mandalorian, and Elon Musk is paying her legal bills  

Carano was fired in 2021 after she posted to social media, including X (formerly Twitter), conservative opinions on hot-button issues such as gender pronouns usage, Black Lives Matter, election fraud, the COVID-19 lockdowns, and mask mandates.  

Disney “bullied Ms. Carano, trying to force her to conform to their views about cultural and political issues, and when that bullying failed, they fired her,” explained Gene Schaerr, Carano’s attorney, in a statement.  

The suit explains that at one point, Disney/Lucasfilm demanded that Carano “participate in a Zoom call with Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and 45 employees who identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community, going so far as to say that her willingness to endure such harassment and humiliation was a ‘litmus test’ for her.”  

Following her termination by the entertainment giant, Carano’s agent, United Artists, and her entertainment attorney, dropped her as a client. 

Elon Musk is making good on his promise 

Elon Musk has followed through on the promise he made last fall to fund the legal bills of people treated unfairly by employers over their posts on X/Twitter.      

“As a sign of X Corp’s commitment to free speech, we’re proud to provide financial support for Gina Carano’s lawsuit, empowering her to seek vindication of her free speech rights on X and the ability to work without bullying, harassment, or discrimination,” said Joe Benarroch, X’s head of business operations.  

Carano announced her lawsuit on X on Tuesday: 

After my 20 years of building a career from scratch, and during the regime of former Disney CEO Bob Chapek, Lucasfilm made this statement on Twitter, terminating me from The Mandalorian: “Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm & there are no plans for her to be in the future. Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural & religious identities are abhorrent & unacceptable.”    

“Nothing could be further from the truth,” explained the MMA fighter turned actress. “The truth is I was being hunted down from everything I posted to every post I liked because I was not in line with the acceptable narrative of the time. My words were consistently twisted to demonize & dehumanize me as an alt right wing extremist. It was a bullying smear campaign aimed at silencing, destroying & making an example out of me.”      

“Artists do not sign away our rights as American citizens when we enter into employment,” she added.  

The 59-page civil suit, which was filed in California federal court, begins with a clever, iconic Star Wars-style introduction:  

A short time ago in a galaxy not so far away, Defendants made it clear that only one orthodoxy in thought, speech, or action was acceptable in their empire, and that those who dared to question or failed to fully comply would not be tolerated. And so it was with Carano. After two highly acclaimed seasons on The Mandalorian as Rebel ranger Cara Dune, Carano was terminated from her role as swiftly as her character’s peaceful home planet of Alderaan had been destroyed by the Death Star in an earlier Star Wars film. And all this because she dared voice her own opinions, on social media platforms and elsewhere, and stood up to the online bully mob who demanded her compliance with their extreme progressive ideology.

Defendants’ wrath over their employees’ social media posts also differed depending on sex. Even though “the Force is female,” Defendants chose to target a woman while looking the other way when it came to men. While Carano was fired, Defendants took no action against male actors who took equally or more vigorous and controversial positions on social media.

But the rule of law still reigns over the Defendants’ empire. And Carano has returned to demand that they be held accountable for their bullying, discriminatory, and retaliatory actions—actions that inflicted not only substantial emotional harm, but millions of dollars in lost income.

The lawsuit cites many examples of appalling social media posts by other Disney/Lucasfilm personalities that went unaddressed and unpunished:  

In several social media posts, original Star Wars star Mark Hamill made comparisons of Americans who support President Trump with Nazis while also asserting that Trump is the KKK’s candidate. 

Co-star Pedro Pascal, who played the role of the Mandalorian, often expressed positive views on the Black Lives Matter movement, LGBTQ+ rights, and protests for abortion rights. He also compared Trump to Hitler.  During Pride Month, 2020, he posted two Disney-owned Muppet characters, Bert and Ernie, drawn as activists waving a transgender and LGBTQ+ pride flag and promoting “Black Lives Matter” and “Defund the Police.”  

Co-star Pedro Pascal’s June 27, 2020 social media post. Schaerr-Jaffe LLP court filing on behalf of Gina Carano

Disney even rehired Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn in 2019 after terminating him in 2018 for horrific social media posts years earlier such as “I like when little boys touch me in my silly place,” and “The Expendables was so manly I ****d the ***t out of the little pussy boy next to me! The boys ARE back in town!”  

Yet Disney failed to offer to reinstate Carano, and turned a blind eye to Hamill’s and Pascal’s offensive posts.  

“I would love to pick up where I left off & continue my journey of creating & participating in story-telling, which is my utmost passion & everything I worked so hard for,” said Carano on Tuesday.  “It has been difficult to move forward with the lies & labels stuck on me, backed & encouraged by the most powerful entertainment company in the world.”  

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