Funny bobble headed leopard plate, an old man's head, and contained Grimace, from Mission Thrift in Lethbridge, AB

A new inter-city bus service is up and running in Edmonton.

FlixBus is a low-cost bus service offering trips to Calgary, Red Deer and Lethbridge.

The Munich-based company took over Greyhound Lines Inc. in 2021. It started service in Edmonton on Friday.

There will be four daily trips from Edmonton to Calgary and Red Deer. One bus a day will travel to Lethbridge, with stops in Claresholm, Fort McLeod and Okotoks.

"Edmonton and Calgary, as much as we may feel there's a rivalry, there's also tons of mutual connections and families and friends. So just enabling more of that visiting, connecting, I think it's a really positive thing," said Edmonton Coun. Anne Stevenson. [...]

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Tagging: @politicsofcanada, @abpoli

I attended a worship service at a different church this morning. Southminster United Church here in Lethbridge officially became an affirming ministry, and they had invited OUTreach Southern Alberta Society to attend, so I represented our board as the president.

It was such a lovely service. It was inspiring and comforting and emotional. Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I attended a church services as emotional as this one.

Southminster has been very open about their new designation. They have signage both inside and outside in their building. It’s quite obvious. No queer person who shows up to this church will ever need to guess whether they will be welcome there.

I long for the day when a queer person can show up to any LDS building to worship and not have to roll the dice on whether they’ll be accepted, let alone welcomed.

When I came out 4 years ago online, I had to calculate the risk that action carried once it got back to my church leadership. When I decided to come out publicly at church 2.5 years ago, I had to determine whether anyone would try to stop me as I did so or reprimand me afterward. Last year, we got a new bishop, and I had to spend emotional and mental labour on worrying whether his replacement would be as accepting (or more) about my sexual orientation as he had and what that might mean for my participation level in the church. And when our new bishop is replaced, I’ll have to do the same thing once again.

There have been situations over the last 4 years at church where ward members have said hurtful, anti-queer things, and I see those who reach out in support and those who stay silent. I see which of my leaders try to offer support and which ones do not.

For a church that theoretically has at its core the declaration to love our neighbour as ourselves, this should not be the case. Queer Mormons should feel loved when they attend a Mormon church.

So many times, we don’t.

It’s too bad I had to attend a different church to be shown that I, as a queer person, belong.

High Level Bridge (Lethbridge, Alberta)

A complete set of paintings done on or shortly after my trip around southern Alberta!

1. Okotoks

2. Vulcan

3-5. Lethbridge

6-7. Dinosaur Provincial Park

I may go back and do studies from photos at a later date, but for now enjoy a few snapshots! I did my best to label them.

Photo from Maria Burkinshaw and I's performance "Not Like the Other Girls" in 2016

CFAC Television. Lethrbidge, Alberta.

GUYS HOLY AAAHHHH!!!

Look look!!

NOTHING MISSES YOU music video by Thorsten Nesch from 1 EP a month serie...

An outbreak of pertussis, or whooping cough, is spreading in southern Alberta, and it has health officials concerned. 

In a statement Thursday, Alberta Health Services said there are now 146 confirmed cases in the South Zone, which covers the area south of Calgary, including the cities of Brooks, Lethbridge and Medicine Hat. 

In just the past week, the number of confirmed cases of whooping cough in the area has jumped nearly 20 per cent. Cases have been identified at schools, churches and other sites where children gather, AHS said. While the majority of cases have been among children, some adults have also been affected. [...]

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“Work Among the Unemployed Youth!” Young Worker.  June 15th, 1931. Page 3. ---- By N. Freed ---- Work among the unemployed cannot be overestimated. The Unemployed situation in Canada has taken on a real mass character. We can expect a much worse situation this coming winter as employment is continually on the decline. Unemployment is the cause of the whole working class today. We cannot carry on work among the employed workers in the shop unless we win the confidence of the unemployed workers - both are very closely linked up. Any underestimation of this work is just as dangerous and wrong as the underestimation of the work among the employed workers. This work has not been given the fullest consideration by our league as a whole. There was no national program worked out for this field of activity, as a result each district carried on work of its own. About a year ago or so our approach to the work among the unemployed wrong was entirely wrong. We issued general slogans such as $25,00 for married men, $18.00 for single men young workers. This of course could not bring us any results. It was only when we started to develop our demands on a more concrete basis, such as meal tickets, bed tickets etc. that we were successful in many cases to rally and win the confidence of the workers. Then we had the task of linking this up with the major demands such as non-contributory state unemployment insurance campaign. In this district because of the fact that this was realized at the beginning of last winter we can record some very good achievements. The unemployed workers in Winnipeg fully realize that it was as a result of the leadership given by the party and league that they have received some "relief." 

The methods of "relief” on the part of the boss class in their division of single and married men makes it rather difficult to define the actual demands of the young workers as in the category of single men there are both young and adult workers. The amount of relief they receive and the provisions under which they receive it are identical. Because of this situation it makes it also difficult on the organizational field. You could not organize youth sections in the employed association, you would have to organize single men and married men. This of course is not advisable. This does not necessarily mean that there are no specific youth demands amongst the unemployed youth. There are for instance discrimination against young workers. If their fathers are receiving relief or they have dependents they are denied any kind of relief. Particularly is this true among the unemployed girls, The girls are forced to accept house work and farm work just for their meals and if they refuse this they are cut off entirely and given no relief.

It is very difficult to organize the unemployed girls particularly as they don't hang out in the slave markets, soup kitchens and very few of them go to the employment agencies.

Those girls that we did succeed in drawing into our ranks because of lack of attention and also be cause of the uninteresting meeting dropped out. This proves to us that we have to find more attractive means to keep young workers in our unemployed associations, such as sports, etc. The to get best way to keep unemployed workers both the youth and adult work unemployed associations The by proving to them that this organization is fighting for their immediate demands. In Winnipeg, for instance there are about 3,000 unemployed workers in this association. A great number of them are young workers. This is because the unemployed association is continually taking up the grievances of the unemployed with the city authorities. There is a special grievance apartment set up for this purpose.

The Relief assigned by the governments Federal, Provincial and Municipal was to be direct relief, but the authorities found that it was more profitable for them to create relief jobs of all kinds. Most of them being of a non-productive character under the pretense that direct relief would spoil the moral of the people.

Unemployed workers are being entirely forced to work several days a week for this so-called "relief". At the present time the number of days of work have been increased while the relief has been cut down to a minimum. The single men are being forced into soup kitchens and flop house The married men's allowances have been cut. The task of the unemployed organization is that of carrying on a struggle against the soup kitchens and also to develop strikes on these relief jobs.

The coming National convention of the league has one of its tasks to work out a concrete program of demands for the Unemployed Youth to nationalize the work, to find suitable forms of work in order to keep the unemployed young work in our organizations. This question has got to be given very close consideration. It is necessary to make a study of the number of unemployed youth in Canada. Today we find that about 50 per cent of the working youth in Canada are unemployed and a great number are part time. This field of work is a very fruitful field for our league and party and much more consideration must be given to this question.

N. FREED

“Activities Among the Young Miners,” Young Worker. June 15th, 1931. --- By J. Tr ---- The activities of the YCL among the young miners was not stressed much at the unit meetings of the Lethbridge Sub-district. When circulars in this respect were sent out by the DEC the comrades took the matter up followed by very little discussion or no discussion at all and passed up with the feeling that there wa not much more to be done. It has even been proven where members took very lule part in Trade Union meetings. There was not much done in get- contacts with young miners.

We find that under the present conditions it is very easy to get contacts through talking with individuals about their everyday grievances. We have tried to get contacts by holding socials but little was accomplished, due to the fact. that the young miners took no interest in these socials. Just lately we have found out that much better results be gotten through having all members trying individual contacts with their miner friends.

High Level Bridge (Lethbridge, Alberta)

Day 4: Hello from Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden in Lethbridge!

Yates Memorial Theatre