Alternative Approaches

Becoming Spaceworthy: A Season of Reason and Change

Becoming Spaceworthy: A Season of Reason and Change

By David James Salvia on April 4, 2022

The untamed mind set loose without being tempered by the needs of physical existence, which is life, cannot be sustained. Welcome to Spaceship Earth.

Imagine a space-going vessel, not something small containing only humans, but a vast one teeming with life. Imagine living in space, not just with other people, but with forests and lakes full of all manner of fish, flora, and fauna. For a species to establish a true space-faring civilization, it must survive its own technology and root that civilization in a healthy, viable environment. We will not be able to populate other star systems without taking nature with us. We need wolves and rabbits, deer and field mice, wild horses, bear and fowl. If we are to become such a spaceworthy species, we need to consciously define and claim a new ecological niche. There is more to the story.

Want Psychedelic? Nine Iconic Pristine Posters from San Francisco’s Days of Love ‘n’ Haight

By Christine Hall on April 1, 2022

Heritage Auctions is auctioning a collection of mint condition rock ‘n’ roll posters from San Francisico’s acid, weed, music, and Summer-of-Love fueled golden age in the mid to late 1960s. We have nine of them here that we’re sure you’ll want to look at.

Jefferson Airplane 1966. Click on image for full resolution (you might have to click twice for full size).

Wowie-zowie! You never know what’s going to show up in your inbox when you publish a website like AlternativeApproaches.

Like, for instance, a few days ago the Dallas-based online auction house, Heritage Auctions, sent us these high resolution images of nine pristine-condition rock posters from the psychedelic days when San Francisco was cool and groovy and everything was far out. It’s enough to blow your mind, you dig?

Original Spider-Man Art From a 1984 Comic Book on the Auction Block

Original Spider-Man Art From a 1984 Comic Book on the Auction Block

By AlternativeApproaches on December 21, 2021

Original artwork from 1984’s ‘Secret Wars’ No. 8 from Marvel Comics makes public debut at Heritage Auctions in January.

DALLAS, Texas (Dec. 21, 2021) – In glorious black-and-white, here comes the Spider-Man.

Marvel Comics’ Secret Wars was a comic book created to sell toys. It also forever altered the fate of Marvel Comics, the future of the entire comics industry and most of all, the swing of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, who traded his beloved red-and-blues for an alien black costume later infused with a touch of venom.

The two pages that tell the backstory of this living outfit – this symbiote, in the parlance of True Believers – are among the centerpiece offerings in Heritage Auctions’ Comics & Comic Art Signature Auction to be held January 13-16. For the first time, the original art for Page 24 and Page 25 from Secret Wars No. 8 will be available to the public, each illustrated by Mike Zeck from writer Jim Shooter’s script.

Public Dialog Needed on Releasing Gene-Edited Species into the Wild

Public Dialog Needed on Releasing Gene-Edited Species into the Wild

By AlternativeApproaches on December 21, 2021

NEW YORK, December 21 — A new report released by The Hastings Center, a leading ethics research institute, finds that the complex issues raised by releasing gene-edited species into the wild demand deep and broad public engagement. The report, Gene Editing in the Wild: Shaping Decisions Through Broad Public Deliberation, provides a path forward to move decision-making from the realm of experts to a more inclusive, values-based approach using the technique of public deliberation – or deliberative democracy.

The goals of gene editing in the wild efforts are wide-ranging, and the benefits potentially transformative–such as preventing mosquitoes from spreading disease. But this work poses major trade-offs that require the public’s consideration.

Kearns Tells All About Phoebe — But Who Is ‘The ‘Poetry Man?’

Kearns Tells All About Phoebe — But Who Is ‘The ‘Poetry Man?’

By Christine Hall on June 16, 2015

At about five-thirty on Sunday afternoon, Philip Kearns and the band got tuned-up to play and pay “A Tribute to Phoebe Snow.” This would be the fourth time that Kearns had performed this tribute to his ex-wife, who died a little over four years ago at age 60. He’d originally done the show as a one-off performance in Greenwich Village about a year ago, but the success of that show led to a performance in downtown Winston-Salem, which led to another performance at Greensboro’s Carolina Theatre.

This time he was playing at the Luna Lounge & Tiki Bar, a nice enough small bar at the northern boundary of Winston-Salem’s gallery district, a far cry from the Duplex Cabaret, where he first performed the show, or the venerable Carolina. But the show was for charity, to raise funds for the North Star LGBT Center, a cause dear to his heart. So, as they say, “The show must go on.”