FEATURES
Anchorage Daily News responds to controversy stirred up by April/May 2006 Humanity News edition
On Sunday, May 7, 2006 the Anchorage Daily News published three articles about the April/May edition of Alaska Humanity News. Our stories on the way Alaskan arts organizations refuse to make judgments on the basis of moral or spiritual criteria was upsetting to those organizations, and the Daily News—the principal media outlet that reviews and promotes them—took this opportunity to explore (and, to some extent, to defend) the ideas of the arts status quo.
You can find the three articles they published here:
Art and morality: Article’s authors discuss high art and low spirituality
Artists, presenters bristle at idea of ‘objective standards,’ by Dawnell Smith
Nobody owns the franchise for truth and good taste, by Mark Baechtel
If you’d like to continue the discussion, click on one of the two buttons at the top of this page to enter our forums.
Features of Alaska Humanity News
Unheard voices
Challenges
Alternatives
News of the real
Organizations we support
True riches
Room for improvement
Movie reviews
Restaurant reviews
Art reviews
Events pages: Inspire, transform, expand
Huzanity Center projects
Challenges
One of the goals of Alaska Humanity News is to explore everyday events and situations that escape attention because they are omnipresent. CHALLENGES is one of these features. Look through this edition to find other unusual features.
Send us news about perplexing contradictions, about unexamined assaults on everyday life, and we will take a look inside the news, and outside the box, and publicize it. See page 6 for a look at last month’s Challenge: the Hummer at the Airport.
A goal of Alaska Humanity News is to explore the ways that debilitating situations are imposed on us by bureaucracies and corporations. It often seems that we have little control of these small but omnipresent influences. But we do have control, if only we step up to the monoliths, and challenge them to justify their decisions (in ways other than pure economics)
Challenges is a key element of the paper, and in general a final part of the process of understanding and action. There are external and internal challenges.
True Riches & Room for Improvement
True Riches
Something good is happening. Great places, beautiful things. Great places to study, meet people, walk, etc. Brief stories about quirky, funny, or other meaningful urban happenings. Incidences of unexpected care, consciousness, or love. Metropolitan diary.
Room for improvement
‘Notices of problems.’
In the spirit of working together to improve life in Alaska.
Movie reviews
Our total review standards
Rather than give a single rating to films, our goal is to review the film on the basis of several categories and from several perspectives . By seeing the rating for each category, a potential viewer should be able to make a determination of what might attract them (or repel them) to the movie.
Entertainment value: Does the film engage and entertain the viewer?
Meaning: Does the film have philosophical, social or spiritual meaning? Does it provoke thought or an evaluation of ideas?
Emotional impact: Is the film moving? If a comedy, does it move you to laugh? If a drama, does it move you to feel something? If a horror movie, does it frighten you?
Gratuitous violence or sex: A low rating means the filmmaker used a lot of cheap thrills that were not important to the story.
Lack of advertising: To what extent is the film a vehicle for promoting consumer products and specific brands? A low rating in this category means the film is full of commercials disguised as movie-making. A high rating means the movie is relatively free of advertising.
Over quality: Over quality of cinematography, script, and acting. To what extent does the story rely on the medium of film for its conveyance?
Overall impact: Does the film leave the viewer enlivened or degraded? Entertained or bored? Thinking or numb?
What events are inspiring, expanding, or transformative?
The Invisible College
Educational events and opportunties to restore aliveness in life and learning.
One critierion: Is the experience hierarchical and authoritative?
Meetings
Arts, Museums, Films
Celebrations
Entertainment that lifts, inspires, or transforms
Educational Travel
Nature
Newspaper Volunteer Opportunities
Barter Board
A place of equal exchange. Trade your things or skills for other people’s things or skills.
Classifieds
A place of unequal exchange. Sell things you don’t want to get money to buy things you do want.
Other
Benefits, free services, community building, farmers’ corner, nature walk.
Humanity News news
Information about the plans and meaning of the paper, volunteer positions needed, etc.
The intention of our feature Alaskans in the World
People around the world imagine Alaska as the dream place of freedom and Eskimos.
What is missing from our lives here? What are we searching for, and what are we finding?
The goal of Unheard Voices
The purpose of this newspaper is to seek out the inner and under-represented voices of all of us. The goal of Unheard Voices is to share the voices of people who are marginalized in more tangible ways: the afflicted, the poor, the disabled, prisoners, prostitutes, the addicted, the elderly or the young, etc. What does it mean to live in a violent world that suppresses what is of most importance? How does it feel to be oppressed, violated, or ignored? What led the subjects to where they have arrived? What do they cherish, and how do they hope to achieve this?
Please contact us with your ideas about other unheard voices.
Where is ‘elemental society’?
It is a place where the true things we sense, and that lie deepest in our heart, have a place to be expressed and to be heard. It is a safe place for the sensitive, exquisite inner life, and our hidden, underdeveloped, beautiful voices. It contains the capacity to bring the beautiful into society—to bring deep public life into existence through its roots.
It is the way the organization of society cultivates the appreciation of beauty, intellect, and emotional depth; the way it promotes genuine relationships; the way it creates opportunities for meaningful participation.
Restaurant reviews
Our total review standards
How does the restaurant nurture our whole selves (not just our bodies)? Rated with four to zero suns (or sunny-side eggs on a plate).
The norm
Food, taste, price, service, cleanliness, atmosphere.
Spirit
Authenticity, generosity, truthfulness, compassion, simplicity, inclusiveness, awareness, beauty.
Justice
Labor of producers, environment, wages of workers, profit structure, hierarchy or equality.
Community
Community relations, art, healthy food, quiet spaces
Judged by zero to three suns on a plate.
Anchorage Citizens' Coalition
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Organizations we support
Alaska Humanity News supports these organizations because they are working towards a more just, more livable, and more vital world.
This is a space that belongs to those organizations, and which they can use for events listings, and any content they choose.