Hasta La Gadget!

TOKYO (AP) — The fates of a Japanese journalist and Jordanian military pilot were unknown Friday, a day after the latest purported deadline for a possible prisoner swap passed with no further word from the Islamic State group holding them captive.

Jordan has said it will only release an al-Qaida prisoner, Sajida al-Rishawi, from death row if it gets proof the pilot, Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh, is alive and so far has received no such evidence from the hostage-takers.

At the same time, the government is under domestic pressure to win the release of al-Kaseasbeh, the first foreign pilot to be captured by Islamic State militants since a U.S.-led military coalition began carrying out air strikes against IS-controlled areas of Iraq and Syria in September. Jordan is part of the coalition.

In the pilot’s home village of Ay in the southern Karak district, several dozen protesters called for his release and chanted against Jordan’s role in the alliance against Islamic State. “The sons of Jordan must not be sacrificed for America,” read a banner.

Former Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher said that the Jordanian government faces only bad options in the hostage crisis. The pilot was captured in December, after his F-16 fighter plane went down over an IS-controlled area of Syria.

“Jordan does not have a history of negotiating with terrorists,” Muasher told The Associated Press in an interview in Beirut. “At the same time, I think it is clear that all other alternatives are worse than releasing the pilot and ending in that scenario.”

“I think the country is united today in calling for the release of the pilot and that obviously is the priority of the Jordanian government,” he said.

The veteran diplomat said he does not expect King Abdullah II to second-guess Jordan’s role in the U.S.-led coalition because of increasingly vocal protests against such participation following the capture of the pilot.

“The king has made it clear that this is a war of values, not just a military war against ISIS (Islamic State) and that as such, Jordan needs to be involved,” Muasher said. “In fact, Jordan needs to be at the forefront of fighting ISIS.”

Al-Rishawi, 44, faces death by hanging for her role in triple 2005 hotel bombings in the Jordanian capital Amman that killed 60 people, the worst terror attack in Jordan. Her suicide belt did not go off and she fled the scene, but was quickly arrested.

She initially confessed, but later recanted. Al-Rishawi is from the Iraqi city of Ramadi and has close family ties to the Iraqi branch of al-Qaida, a precursor of the Islamic State group. Three of her brothers were al-Qaida operatives killed in fighting in Iraq.

Government spokesman Mohammed al-Momani declined comment Friday on a Kuwaiti newspaper report that her execution and the trials of Islamic State-linked detainees in Jordan could be fast-tracked if the pilot is killed by his captors.

Earlier this week, an audio message purportedly posted by Islamic State militants said the pilot would be killed if al-Rishawi was not delivered to the Turkish border by sunset Thursday. The authenticity of the recording could not be verified independently by the AP.

It was not clear from the recording what would happen to a second hostage, Japanese journalist Kenji Goto, if the Iraqi woman was not turned over by the deadline. The deadline passed without word on the fate of the captives.

Officials in Tokyo said they had no progress to report.

“There is nothing I can tell you,” said government spokesman Yoshihide Suga, reiterating Japan’s “strong trust” in the Jordanians to help save Goto.

Suga said the government was in close contact with Goto’s wife, Rinko Jogo, who released a statement late Thursday pleading for her husband’s life.

The pilot’s father, Safi al-Kaseasbeh, said Friday that he had no word on the fate of his son and had not received any update from Jordanian authorities. “I have nothing,” he said, speaking after Muslim noon prayers in the Jordanian capital of Amman.

A spokesman for the family, Said Dalaeen, later said there was word that the pilot is alive, but did not elaborate.

The hostage drama began last week after the Islamic State group released a video showing Goto and another Japanese hostage, Haruna Yukawa kneeling in orange jumpsuits beside a masked man who threatened to kill them in 72 hours unless Japan paid a $200 million ransom. That demand later apparently shifted to one for the release of al-Rishawi.

The militants have reportedly killed Yukawa, 42, although that has not been confirmed.

The crisis prompted the Japanese Foreign Ministry to issue a warning Friday to journalists to avoid the border town in Turkey that could be a crossing point from Syria if a prisoner swap goes ahead.

It noted that Islamic State militants were likely aware of who was in the area. “We cannot dismiss the possibility of a kidnapping of Japanese journalists or of other risks to them,” it said.

“Under such circumstances, reporting on Turkish-Syrian border, even on the Turkey side, and of course in Syria, is likely to lead to unanticipated risks and be very dangerous,” the statement said, reiterating earlier warnings. “We strongly urge you to refrain from visiting or staying in the area for reporting, and to leave immediately.”

The warning followed news that a Japanese journalist helping cover a possible prisoner swap at the border died in a car crash near the area Thursday, according to Turkish officials.

Kazumi Takaya, based in Turkey for 22 years, was working as a translator for Fuji TV at the time of the crash, local media reports said.

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Laub reported from Amman, Jordan.

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Associated Press writers Omar Akour in Amman, Jordan and Miki Toda, Kaori Hitomi and Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.

A homeless man is pursuing his love of reading thanks to a good Samaritan.

Last week, a San Diego man, who wishes to remain anonymous, was on a business trip in Las Vegas when he frequently passed a homeless man named Paul on the street. The man noticed that Paul had been reading an old, worn book every time he walked by, and decided to go up and talk to him.

“I just asked him if he liked to read,” the man told The Huffington Post in an email. “He said he loved to but that he had been reading that one book over and over for a while now.”

The man remembered he was carrying his Kindle, and decided to give it to Paul and teach him how to use it. In the following days, the man witnessed firsthand how much Paul enjoyed the device. He took a picture of Paul and his new Kindle, and shared it on Reddit on Thursday under the username, mjuad.

The moving photo has already gone viral with nearly 2 million views on Imgur.

“It brought me a lot of joy to see someone getting so much from something that I gave them,” he told HuffPost. “It feels so good to see someone get so much for something I took for granted.”

The Kindle is already stocked with around 300 books, but, before he left Las Vegas, the man gave Paul an address where he could send the device, cash on delivery, should he need more reading material.

The gesture was a beautiful one, and the anonymous man hopes that by sharing it, he can inspire others.

“If I can keep someone from going hungry for a day or brighten their day/life up in any way, I always try to do my best,” he told HuffPost. “I’m also hoping that by sharing this, I will encourage others to do something kind as well.”

H/T Reddit

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If you’ve perused The Huffington Post Arts & Culture page at all this week, you may have noticed the spread of outsider artists gracing the site. That’s because this weekend is the 23rd edition of the Outsider Art Fair, one of the rare and peculiar occasions when the art world gathers to celebrate and explore artists who, by and large, are unaware of the art world’s real, prickly existence.

Henry Darger, Jenny and Her Sisters are Nearly Run Down by Train…, n.d. Watercolor and pencil on paper 18 x 24 inches (45.7 x 61 cm)

There are various ways to make sense of outsider art as a genre. Roberta Smith calls it “a somewhat vague, catchall term for self-taught artists of any kind.” Lyle Rexer defines it as “the work of people who are institutionalized or psychologically compromised according to standard clinical norms” or “created under the conditions of a massively altered state of consciousness, product of an unquiet mind.” Jerry Saltz argues it doesn’t exist at all, except as a discriminatory boundary preventing untrained artists from their rightful places in the canon.

Rebecca Hoffman, director of the Outsider Art Fair, has her own distinction. “I utilize the term ‘outsider art’ as an umbrella for a lot of different categories,” she explained to HuffPost. “Primarily, what we term outsider art is self-taught or non-academic work. So, that could be somebody who is a mathematician who has taught himself how to paint. That could be somebody who [has severe autism] and expresses himself through drawing. That could be a member of an aboriginal tribe in Western Australia, a herdsman for her entire life, who painted prolifically for her final 14 years of life. That could be someone who was drawing to escape violence in New Orleans. It could be someone who took to marble carving to express all of the diverse experiences he’s undergone.”

Susan Te Kahurangi King, Untitled, c. 1978, Graphite, ebony and crayon on paper

According to Hoffman’s definition, which echoes the “catchall” mentality of Smith, the “outsider” classification hinges more on the artist than the art. While other genres like Abstract Expressionism or Cubism denote a specific set of aesthetic guidelines or artistic traditions, the label “outsider art” reflects more the life story and mental or emotional aptitude of the artist. Outsider art lumps together a mishmash of people from wildly disparate places and times, similar only in the fact that they seem to struggle with a vague blanket of personal trajectories and inner demons.

Take for example the fact that a 19th century artist from rural Switzerland, diagnosed with schizophrenia after attempting to molest a young girl, is placed in the same category as a contemporary artist based in Oakland, California, whose watercolors take inspiration from Kiss and The Addams Family. How can this be?

To complicate matters even further, most artists on view don’t categorize themselves as outsider artists, or even realize their work is being seen and evaluated at all.

“The art exhibited in our show was created out of a need to create art and a love for art, rather than art that’s referencing cultural signifiers or informed by the institution or intellectual signifiers,” Hoffman continued. It’s this unifying aspect that often yields works that overlap aesthetically, despite the contrasting origins and experiences of the artists. Outsider art is, often, known to be naive, obsessive, visceral and autonomous — dissociated from the artistic norms and trends that define the zeitgeist for those not impervious to it. After stripping away cultural conventions and the impending shadow of the artistic establishment, artists’ deeper inspirations and messages come to the surface. And sometimes, oddly, they converge, hinting at some yawning humanity within us all.

Andrew Frieder, Untitled (Fishman) 2007 mixed media on paper 20X16”

Certain words buzz around discussions of outsider art — words like “naive,” “pure,” “raw,” “visionary” and “fanatic.” It’s true — we’ve used some of the above. While many of these characteristics hold true, they speak not only to the artist but the viewers, and their own ideas of what constitutes art making in its most idealized, authentic sense. Are they searching for the maniacal genius, isolated and misunderstood, creating beauty that stands outside of time and circumstance, untouched by the pettiness of everyday life and mainstream culture? After all, outsider art, at times, affirms the value and potential of art many artists and art lovers believe in and aspire to: it celebrates the outsider. It unveils the unadulterated act of creation, outside of norms and trends and anxieties and the desire for commercial success. It can conveys the power of the unbridled imagination to create order, constitute beauty from basically nothing and even save a life.

“Why look at outsider art and self-taught art, if not out of romantic nostalgia for some image of unfettered individuality and expressive freedom?” Lyle Rexer writes in How to Look at Outsider Art. “Or is our fascination with this art just one more form of voyeurism?”

Aurie Ramirez, Untitled, 2009

“I was basically born into the art world,” Hoffman said. “My mother owns an art gallery and I grew up around art my whole life. I had reached a point where I got into the business of outsider art because I love that moment where a person clicks with a piece of art and falls in love with it. Maybe that’s an old fashioned notion, but I wanted to have the opportunity to be involved with environments where people connected with art on a visceral level and all the other noise just stopped. I do think that happens more with outsider art. It’s so pure in its need for creation.”

The characteristics accepted as deep-rooted in outsider art often converge with what’s praised in “insider art.” Vincent Van Gogh famously grappled with mental illness, making his work all the more cryptic and all the more gripping. Yayoi Kusama, who’s experienced hallucinations since a young age, said “Painting saved my life,” and makes art to this day in a mental institution. Jean-Michel Basquiat’s crude style, dubbed “primitivist” at the time, shot him to meteoric art stardom. Kinshasha Conwill, director of the Studio Museum of Harlem, explained in The New York Times: “People did exploit his race and try to make him an exotic figure.”

Are outsider artists, à la Saltz’s initial conclusion, victims of a similar reduction? Otherness, individuality and darkness have long been venerated in the world of art; so, are outsider artists the apotheosis of this kind of exploitation? Or does the veneration of outsider art further lay bare a reality that’s simply slipped under the rug in other circles?

Landscape, Sunset over Black Mountain, Water color and oil on paper ( Polaroid box cover ), 3 13/16” x 3 ¼”.

In the end, there is a dark side — or at least a discomforting side — to the quickly rising popularity of art explicitly made possible by suffering, whether of mind or physical circumstance. But there’s also an undeniable magic to the ethos of the fair, a message that communicates that, at its core, art is by everyone and for everyone. It’s not about clever allusions, MFAs, market trends and traditions that are constantly being overturned for the sake of overturning them. Through an outsider lens, art is about imagination and creation, generating worlds inside your mind and letting them free, transforming suffering into profound beauty.

Because of the simplicity of the message, outsider art is also refreshingly unpretentious. “You look at fairs like Scope or Pulse or the Armory show, and they’re all showing work that has been created in a vacuum where people paid attention to the artistic institution, where people pay attention to art historical practice, the chronology of development,” Hoffman said. “The Outsider Art Fair is more approachable. There’s a large percentage of the population who may not feel comfortable going to Frieze because they do not know the institution. Here, everyone is welcome.”

We should be careful about how we address, categorize and subconsciously idealize what’s known as outsider art. But when it comes to seeing it in person — as Hoffman is quick to point out — we should never hesitate.

The Outsider Art Fair runs from January 29 until February 1 at Center 548 in New York. See a preview below and let us know your thoughts in the comments.

For many people who identify as religious, praying is the first activity upon waking up and the last before going to bed. For many in the social media generation, this pious ritual has been replaced with a morning Instagram scroll, a mid-day Tweet and a goodnight Facebook scan.

Artist Carlo Fantin explores the relation between religious observance and social media obsession through a series of wildly detailed hand-cut paper artworks. Made with only construction paper and a craft knife, the black-and-white images echo the ornate stained glass tableaux that often adorn church windows, with added touches particular to the contemporary age. Images of prayer, all clasped hands and covered heads, are interspersed with internet savvy symbols we recognize all too well — the Facebook “like,” the Twitter bird, the perfectly square Instagram cam. The images, both viscerally stunning and thought-provoking, raise questions about what we value and revere in this bizarre internet age.

“Growing up in Italy, and having a devoutly Catholic mother, I spent many Sunday mornings in the Basilica di San Marco in Venice, which was our local church,” Fantin explained to The Huffington Post. “It is there that I first experienced art through the icons of various saints and the Virgin Mary displayed throughout the cathedral. I have always been fascinated with the iconographic style and with the relationship between religious worship and contemporary obsessions. Often these two worlds collide, and the result is a society that displays religious devotion for modern fixations.”

“Italians venerate an endless numbers of saints and pay special reverence to the Virgin Mary,” added the artist. “The devotion to each saint is specific to the type of preoccupation you are afflicted with. In my art, I attempt to capture the similarity between Catholic worship and veneration of religious figures with obsession with social networking and the idolatry of internet popularity. In a way, theorizing that the internet has become our modern-day religion; social networks are our contemporary churches; and internet celebrities have becomes the saints and Virgin Mary of today.”

Take a look at Fantin’s dizzying commentaries below.

Usually political calculation isn’t this obvious.

On the one hand, you’ve got Congresswoman Renee Ellmers, a conservative’s conservative who dared to suggest that voting on an abortion ban with a limited rape exception might look bad to women and younger voters. On the other, billionaire David Koch, a prominent conservative who supports legal abortion and gay rights. That conservative activists are screaming for the former’s Congressional seat and completely ignoring the latter shows the hypocrisy of anti-abortion politics today.

Ellmers has a lifetime 100 percent voting record with National Right to Life, but now she’s “Public Enemy No. 1” for conservative activists for saying the obvious: voting on an abortion ban with a very punitive rape “exception” is bad politics. She’s not against banning abortion or even this bill, mind you. She just didn’t want to make a bad impression with voters. For showing political acumen, Erick Erickson of RedState called her “a sniveling liar” and “the GOP’s Abortion Barbie.” Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council threatened to get her a primary opponent in the next election. “That’s going to happen and she deserves it,” said Dannenfelser.

Criticizing Ellmers from the right became such easy sport that Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert got into the act, but not without creating his own little sideshow.

“I’m told that they’re still going to bring [the bill] back, but because there was such division among our Republican females, they pulled the bill that day,” Gohmert said on a conference call with conservative activists. “And that was extremely unfortunate, and it sent entirely the wrong message.” Our Republican females? Who talks like that?

While Ellmers was rearranging the deck chairs on the head of a pin, pro-choice Libertarian David Koch was hosting anti-abortion politicians and White House aspirants Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Scott Walker who gladly sang for their super PAC supper at the Koch’s FreedomWorks confab.

Color me unsurprised that none of them skipped the conference in protest of Koch’s support of marriage equality and abortion rights. Or maybe I just missed Cruz, Paul, and Scott publicly demanding that Koch renounce his support for legal abortion before they could accept his coin? Seems like Perkins and Dannenfelser don’t seem to be finding the same outrage in Koch’s admission that they showed for Ellmers’ lesser offenses against orthodoxy. Gosh. No one even seemed to bring it up.

Of course, the Koch brothers recently laid down their marker for 2016, saying they were planning on spending $899 million in the upcoming elections. And if past is prologue, then we know that many of those millions will be going to the Susan B. Anthony List and Americans United for Life Action, two groups that have taken huge contributions from Koch-backed organizations in the past. That’s a lot more than 30 pieces of silver and apparently enough to alleviate their sharp disagreements with him over abortion. If only Renee Ellmers had a few hundred million dollars to spread around she might have been off the hook!

Is it really that simple? Does money paper over their moral objections? They oppose legal abortion, but just not to the extent that they are willing to go against the biggest donor to conservative causes? The disparity of outrage between what Ellmers and Koch faced exposes a gap in their convictions with maybe a bit of sexism thrown in for fun. Apparently they will yell at women — in Congress or at health centers — but not so much David Koch.

I’ve not had much in common with groups like the Susan B. Anthony List and the Family Research Council. Breitbart never invited me to their Christmas party. From afar, it’s easy to believe that folks who engage in politics as a profession don’t hold deep convictions. Up close, that hasn’t been my experience. Speaking as someone who works in advocacy, I don’t believe in the autonomy of women because I work for Planned Parenthood. It’s the other way around. I believe that women should have the ability to make their own decisions about their health and their lives, so I work for Planned Parenthood. (Hey, David Koch, want to get coffee?)

I always suspected that the same was true for the anti-abortion groups. Despite my deep moral and philosophical differences with those who wanted to criminalize abortion, they seemed to staff their barricades with a rather vicious sincerity. Now, I wonder. If the same people who are picking on Ellmers for her nuanced objections to an abortion bill are silent on Koch’s support of abortion rights, then they do not have the courage I always ascribed to their convictions. What we are seeing is, in fact, political calculation and situational morality of the most expensive order.