Jon Rasty's Blog

inothernews: (The New Yorker via rubycramer)

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 21:00:47 -0700

(The New Yorker via rubycramer)

nparts: Justin Bieber visits Anne Frank museum, says he hoped...

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 16:11:48 -0700

Justin Bieber visits Anne Frank museum, says he hoped Holocaust victim ‘would have been a Belieber’ if she lived
Justin Bieber has visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, and the museum says the Canadian pop star wrote in the guestbook that he hoped Frank “would have been a Belieber” if she had lived.

Museum spokeswoman Maatje Mostart confirmed Sunday that Bieber visited Friday evening.

“Belieber” is what Bieber fans call themselves. Anne Frank was a Jewish teenager who hid with her family in a small apartment above a warehouse during the Nazi occupation of World War II. Her family was caught and deported, and Anne died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945.

The diary she kept in hiding was recovered and published after the war, and has become the most widely read document to emerge from the Holocaust. (Walter Bieri/The Associated Press; NIGEL TREBLIN/AFP/Getty Images)

Wow.

top5funniest: ‘Spring Breakers’ With Actual Disney...

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 13:21:19 -0700

top5funniest:

‘Spring Breakers’ With Actual Disney Princesses

Thank you, Chach. This hilarious parody made my afternoon.

inothernews: President Obama finds himself surrounded on the...

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 22:26:16 -0800

inothernews:

President Obama finds himself surrounded on the next episode of The Sequestered Dead. (Photo: Stephen Crowley / The New York Times)

Sup, Chris.

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 16:23:55 -0800

Sup, Chris.

Can’t tell if I enjoyed the Spring Breakers trailer...

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 21:31:47 -0800

Can’t tell if I enjoyed the Spring Breakers trailer because it actually seems like a good movie or because…

gq: M.V.P. Well, there’s this.

Sun, 03 Feb 2013 22:19:39 -0800

gq:

M.V.P.

Well, there’s this.

Photo

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 22:48:38 -0800

inothernews: From the Washington Post: (Secretary of State...

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 09:26:36 -0800

inothernews:

From the Washington Post:

(Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) began her appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with restraint, and even remorse. She choked up as she described receiving flag-draped caskets at Andrews Air Force Base and hugging relatives of those killed.

But her anger boiled over when rookie Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) demanded to know why she and her aides didn’t immediately call those evacuated from Benghazi to find out whether a protest had preceded the attack. Clinton replied that she didn’t want to interfere with the FBI’s investigation — which is almost certainly what Republicans would have accused her of doing.

“That’s a good excuse,” Johnson said, scornfully.

“Well, no, it’s a fact,” Clinton retorted, growing irritated. Waving her index finger, she pointed out that much of what happened in Libya on Sept. 11 remains unknown.

“No, no, no, no,” Johnson rejoined. “We were misled that there were supposedly protests and then something sprang out of that, an assault . . . and the American people could have known that within days.”

Clinton raised her voice. “With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans,” she shouted at the lawmaker. Waving her arms and then pounding the witness table with her fist, she continued: “Was it because of a protest, or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they’d go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make?”

Johnson stopped interrupting as Clinton continued. “It is, from my perspective, less important today looking backward as to why these militants decided they did it than to find them and bring them to justice,” she said.

Johnson didn’t attempt a rebuttal. “Okay, thank you, Madam Secretary.”

Hillary fucking Clinton, everyone.

(Photo: Pete Marovich / EPA via The Wall Street Journal)

motherjones: We were just reminded of that while looking over...

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 09:26:32 -0800

motherjones:

We were just reminded of that while looking over this again. #GunAds

"[Uni] is like a first date dish…you have this early in the meal, because if she doesn’t..."

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 21:26:00 -0800

“[Uni] is like a first date dish…you have this early in the meal, because if she doesn’t eat this, she’s probably not going to suck your dick later.”

- Anthony Bourdain, “The Layover,” Taipei.

buzzfeed: A great day for America and an even greater day for...

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 11:06:16 -0800

buzzfeed:

A great day for America and an even greater day for photobombs.

Catfished

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 00:10:47 -0800

I wanted my first blog back to be about Thailand, but I’m so absolutely captivated by the Manti Te’o story that Deadspin broke earlier this week, that my travel blog needed to get pushed back. There are so many details and layers to this story — nationality, manipulation, social media, relationships, religion — all of which play major factors in its development and unraveling.

Stories like this (and its semi-predecessor, Sarah Phillips) are so unique to our quickly evolving time, and seeing how the story is perceived among different generations and people with different experiences in social media is absolutely fascinating.

As I’m reading Te’o’s transcript from his interview with ESPN’s Jeremy Schaap, you can almost hear Schaap’s inability to conceive how someone could develop feelings for another person without having met them, let alone establish exclusive boyfriend/girlfriend relationship. Schaap, however, is married with two children and grew up in time different then ours, so his sentiment is completely understandable. I’m sure it’s one that it shared by many others who are following this story.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the interview is how Te’o refers to Lennay Kekua in the first person throughout the interview, as if he has not yet come to terms with the fact that she does not exist. While creepy, in a way it makes sense. Would he be saying “the person claiming to be Lennay Kekua” throughout the interview with Schaap? He seems to be genuinely confused about Kekua’s existence, and while that may seem strange initially, it somehow makes more sense as the interview goes on.

As the interview unfolds, I became convinced that Te’o indeed may have been the victim of a truly horrific hoax. I learned that Te’o was not just some terribly naive college kid who didn’t understand what a real relationship was. The person (or who we learn to be persons) claiming to be Kekua would go to extreme lengths over the course of several months to develop a rapport based on religion, their shared Samoan culture, and later integrate the fake identity into the Te’o family.

Te’o claims that he and Kekua would share thoughts on scripture on a nightly basis, but not just with Manti. Manti’s mother and father would both join in conversing with the person claiming to be Kekua. An entire fake family of sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles was created around Kekua to further blur Te’o’s sense of reality. After Kekua’s supposed death, “family members” flew out to Miami for the BCS National Championship game, wanting to meet up with Te’o. They would of course conveniently arrive after curfew, preventing Te’o from ever confronting them, but they proceeded to send Te’o images of the hotel lobby and front door to prove they were there.

Perhaps the most reprehensible acts of this entire hoax are the details surrounding Kekua’s supposed death. After Te’o relayed the news about his grandmother’s death to Kekua, the disgusting people behind the fake personality felt that hours later would be an opportune time to end Lennay Kekua’s fake life. Clearly they were looking to inflict as much emotional pain onto Manti Te’o as possible. Bone chilling facts such as how the Te’o family sent flowers to an address after Kekua’s death - flowers which someone took a picture of as evidence of receipt and sent the image back to the Te’o’s - are both jaw dropping and gut wrenching.

When I first read this story, I jumped to the conclusion that Manti Te’o must have somehow been involved with the creation of Lennay Kekua as some way to increase his spotlight in the national media. I scoffed at Notre Dame’s claim that he was a victim in this hoax, thinking there was no way any college aged individual could possibly be involved and duped by someone who didn’t exist. After reading Schaap’s interview and seeing how widespread “catfishing” actually is, my position has changed. I think the moment I was convinced Te’o wasn’t involved was when Te’o hears news about Kekua’s death over the phone in the Notre Dame locker room and claims to have been crying hysterically in front of several teammates and coaches. As Schaap mentions, that would have been one hell of an acting job if it wasn’t real.

Whoever created Lennay Kekua went to extreme lengths to protect her true identity with no regard for well, anything. I find it fascinating that a group of people would dedicate so much time and effort to create a fake identity just to try and trick and inflict emotional pain on another person. I really hope that Manti Te’o is being truthful and not covering up something even more ridiculous, but at this point but at this point, I think we’ve learned that nothing is too crazy to be a part of this epic tale.

Hey Off The Grid, eat your heart out. Pig ear, chicken butt,...

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 06:57:08 -0800

Hey Off The Grid, eat your heart out. Pig ear, chicken butt, chicken kidney, and grilled squid for all less than $3. Getting off the main road in Chaweng was an excellent decision. #KohSamui #Thailand

Vacation time! (at San Francisco International Airport (SFO))

Wed, 26 Dec 2012 09:19:34 -0800

Vacation time! (at San Francisco International Airport (SFO))

motherjones: The bullet-proof backpack industry is a real...

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 18:16:01 -0800

motherjones:

The bullet-proof backpack industry is a real thing—and it’s booming, post-Newtown.

Just horrible. This shouldn’t need to be a thing.

"And yet, the very things that make Reed an interesting and beloved person are the same things that..."

Sat, 08 Dec 2012 13:31:04 -0800

“

And yet, the very things that make Reed an interesting and beloved person are the same things that make him an unlikely pick to become the chief technology officer of the reelection campaign of the President of the United States. Political people wear khakis. They only own long-sleeve dress shirts. Their old photos on Facebook show them canvassing for local politicians and winning cross-country meets.

I asked Michael Slaby, Obama’s 2008 chief technology officer, and the guy who hired Harper Reed this time around, if it wasn’t risky to hire this wild guy into a presidential campaign. “It’s funny to hear you call it risky, it seems obvious to me,” Slaby said. “It seems crazy to hire someone like me as CTO when you could have someone like Harper as CTO.”

”

- When The Nerds Go Marching in by Alexis Madrigal (via The Atlantic)

#SFHS @aliciaminhha’s Masquerade.

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 11:07:52 -0800

#SFHS @aliciaminhha’s Masquerade.

Good morning, San Francisco. Monday started off pretty strong....

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 10:27:35 -0800

Good morning, San Francisco. Monday started off pretty strong. (at Terry A Francois Blvd)

davidthedestroyer: bockward: nestorarnel: sleepy-sheep: kingt...

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 20:12:00 -0800

davidthedestroyer:

bockward:

nestorarnel:

sleepy-sheep:

kingtomcat:

are you fucking shitting me professor oak

he’s trying to screw you over so Gary can get the good ones. nepotism.

my friend used my masterball on a bellspout once… I got so mad.

LOL, I used my first one on a Gastly because I mistook it for one of those special ghost pokemon you couldn’t attack in Blue/Red. Ahhh…simpler times.

Professor Oak just wants to watch Red suffer.

I used my first Masterball on a Golbat that I tried to catch for 10 minutes at Seafoam Island. Then I killed Articuno.