Deep Dive GBD October – November [Pt 5]
By MK10ART
Girls By Design [GBD] did not mention Halloween at all in October 2008 but they did bring up the election.
This brought to mind the NXIVM members claiming that they could swing an election. Clare Bronfman, Keith Raniere and Nancy Salzman were doing all that they could to get Hillary Clinton elected president. Bronfman told Nxivm people to donate as much as they could to Clinton’s campaign – and promised that she would reimburse them in full later.
Are We Apathetic?
Posted by Kristin | Filed under General Blog
Here in Canada, we just had a Federal Election. And only about 59.1% of us showed up to the polls. Apparently, that is a record low in the history of the Confederation. We have elected a minority (under 50% of the seats) government. Which is kind of code for: nothing can get done. Unlike the folks in the US, we have more than two major parties… but the two “biggies”(my word, haha) are the Conservatives (more right) and the Liberals (more left). The other major parties are the Bloc Quebecois (French Canada), NDP (left/socialist), and Green. 37% of Canadians voted in another minority Conservative government.
Why am I sharing this? Well… some media is calling the low voter turnout “apathy”. That Canadians are apathetic. And I heard some chatter on CBC Radio (Canadian public radio), about the concept of making it a law to vote. Australia, Brazil, and Iraq (under Saddam) all enforce/d voting.
So I am curious… Is there any other reason why one would not vote that is not apathy? What is apathy? Where does it come from? What causes apathy?
AND
Is it Democratic to make choosing not to vote a punishable crime? Is it good?
AND
Is there anything youth, and female youth can do to change the way our countries are run?
heehee… Excited to hear all your thoughts!!
Love,
Kristin
Tags: Apathy, Canada, election, Youth
Read more | Comments (40) | October 17th, 2008
A few days before Halloween, Kendra writes about an inspirational story of a man and his son. After all of this GBD talk about this website being just for girls (excluding males from sending videos), Kendra showcases an inspirational story about males. A little off-topic for a website ostensibly dedicated to female empowerment. However, Kendra was about to give birth and most likely knew that she would be giving birth to a boy. This may explain why she veered off track with the subject matter.
A Story of Inspiration – Meet Team Hoyt!
Posted by Kendra | Filed under Fab Males
We focus a lot on Fab Females and this is shut out to all you FAB MALES out there!
I just had to share this story and thank my brother Jason for sending it to me this morning.
Jason simply wrote “Just when you think you have it rough, things aren’t going your way, and feel like giving up…think of Team Hoyt! You’re a stronger person then I if you have a dry eye after watching this inspirational story.”
xo
Kendra
Tags: inspiration
Read more | Comments (9) | October 28th, 2008
Next, a new writer named Kathy joins the GBD website without any kind of introduction. She just appears and decided to post about Guinness world records for no apparent reason. She wasn’t trying to break any record and none of the examples that she gave seemed applicable to young women. Of course, anyone who knows about Nxivm knows the Vanguard claimed to have the highest IQ in the world as this was printed in the Guinness Book of World Records.
While Kathy doesn’t mention this in her post, bringing the topic up would provide some background for the teens who might not be aware of this topic. The Guinness Book of World Records was seemingly a bigger deal back in Keith Raniere’s heyday than now. Young people are more concerned with Tik Tok or Twitter than some Guinness records nowadays.
News Day Tuesday: Guinness Records Galore!
Posted by Kathy | Filed under News Day Tuesday
He Pingping is 2 feet 5 inches tall. (photo: Watts / Daily News)
Suresh Joachim (left) and Claudia Wavra (right) sat through 123 continuous hours of movies in New York’s Times Square. Actress Susan Sarandon (center) stopped by to personally drop off a copy of Thelma and Louise, the last movie in the Netflix Popcorn Bowl. (photo: PRNewsFoto/Netflix)
The world’s tallest LEGO tower stands 29.48 meters high and required 460,000 bricks to complete. A crane had to be used to position the highest sections. (photo: AAP)
Lately, my hometown of New York City has seen a slight rise in Guinness World Record activity. The world’s shortest man, He Pingping, literally stopped traffic and caused quite a stir when he visited a few weeks ago (I didn’t get to see him though…man!). He Pingping is 2 feet, 5 inches tall (73.66 cm).
There was also a contest going on last week in a glass living room located in Times Square to see who could break the record for longest continuous movie watching. The last two standing were Suresh Joachim (from Canada) and Claudia Wavra (from Germany), who watched 57 films over the course of 123 hours – that’s more than five days, with just a 10 minute break between movies. (They’re still waiting for the record to be confirmed.)
But Vienna, not to be outdone by NYC, hosted a world record of its own this past week when the world’s tallest LEGO tower was built to a height of 29.48 meters (96.72 feet). The platforms for the tower were built by hundreds of children to celebrate the 100 Years of Friends of Children festival (master builders assembled the platforms together for the final tower).
I thought each of these records was inspiring in its own way. He Pingping could have let his height get in his way, but instead he’s choosing to go out there and travel the world and experience life, stopping traffic along the way. Suresh Joachim has actually broken more than 30 world records in a quest to spread world peace. And who doesn’t love it when a bunch of kids get together to build the tallest LEGO tower in the world??
Now, I haven’t broken any world records, but I thought it would be fun ask everyone what your personal records are? What’s the biggest, smallest, fastest, slowest, tallest, shortest, greatest, silliest thing you’ve ever done?
I’ll go first. Back when I was in college, during my first semester, I slept for maybe a total of 5 hours (an hour here, an hour there) over the course of 3 days studying for finals. *sigh*…Good times, good times. After that bout of sleep deprivation, I learned to manage my time better. Sort of. (heehee)
Your turn!
Tags: inspiration, News Day Tuesday, world records
Read more | Comments (22) | October 14th, 2008
November began with the announcement of Kendra giving birth to her son. It is unclear why any of the teens around the world should really care. The posts were short, overly familiar and lacked any broader discussion on the topic (aside from Kendra’s earlier posts about her G-spot and goat dream.) There was no build-up to the birth to warrant any excitement. It wasn’t “Here’s the moment you have all been waiting for..” Rather, the news of Kendra giving birth had an unexpected, tweet sized “oh by the way Kendra had the kid,” kind of vibe. With these posts it becomes clearer that GBD was more of an afterthought for the 3 or so women who created it. They were obviously were not ‘into it.’
Marcus!
Posted by Kristin | Filed under Baby, Uncategorized
Here is the very first image of Kendra and Terry’s babe… He is awesome… I am in awe.
I visited today, and everyone is healthy, happy and tired. Kendra will write you all as she gets settled.
Love,
Kristin (and Kendra and Marcus)
Tags: Baby, kendra voth, marcus
Read more | Comments (64) | November 1st, 2008
A drum rolls somewhere
Posted by Tabby | Filed under Baby, Journey
YAY!!! I got this message from Kendra this morning:
Little Marcus Terry … joined the world on Halloween. 8lbs 1oz…
Kendra is doing fine! Full of joy and in awe of the childbirth process that women go through. More to post from one of us with lovely photos and maybe a more personal story from Kendra herself. Hang tight, through the weekend at least.
Tags: Baby, childbirth, kendra voth, marcus
Read more | Comments (51) | November 1st, 2008
Following this, they once again, wrote another excuse as to why they hadn’t written a movie review. To top it off, they tried to push the teens into doing their work for them writing, “Who wants to review “Twilight”? Come one, come all! Whoohoo!” It doesn’t appear that the teen girls cared either way. How this is supposed to interest anyone is unclear.
The lack of enthusiasm that the GBD women had towards their website makes is appear as if the entire project was really a homework assignment. I wonder who would have given them this task? (*cough Raniere cough*.) Kendra, Kristin, Kathy and Tabby obviously were less than exuberant about the whole thing.
It appears that the only visitors to the site would have been diehard Smallville fans. This entire ‘blah-g’ rested on the shoulders of tween star Kreuk. Her quick monthly pictures/posts would keep traffic coming to an otherwise extraordinarily bland blog. Perhaps the Nxivm caloric deprivation could be to blame for the languid posts.
MMM = MIA = Meh
Posted by Kathy | Filed under Movie Madness Mondays
You may have noticed that Movie Madness Monday has been Missing In Action for the past few weeks. The word “meh” has only recently entered my vocabulary, but I think that is the appropriate word to describe this unfortunate state of affairs. I’m sure Mari will correct me if I’m mistaken in my usage.
Anyway, apparently Kendra thinks it’s more important to take care of her newborn son than to write a movie review, to which I say “Pfft!” As if Marcus were going anywhere. He just popped into this world! Where’s he gonna go? He’s a guy. He won’t even ask for directions.
Kristin is, I dunno, shooting a TV series or something. Apparently, this requires 14-16 hour days. You know what that means? That means there are still 8-10 hours left in the day to write a movie review! But I guess SOMEONE thinks it’s more important to use the remaining third of the day to do things like sleep. Or eat. Or, I dunno, breathe.
Tabby is off working on her master plan for world domination. I approve of this. I hope she remembers me when the time comes for her to pick a lieutenant.
And Mari…folks, can we please give poor Mari a break here? She already wrote the review for “Gray Matters” not that long ago. Plus, she’s a world-renowned expert in the use of the word “meh.” She’s done enough.
So what to do? Well, it has recently come to my attention that there’s a movie called “Twilight” coming out this week. Maybe you’ve heard of it? Apparently, it’s a very big deal. Because apparently, it’s based on a book that’s, like, a worldwide phenomenon. Dude…all I know is that there’s a guy who can run up trees or something, and he likes this girl, who likes him back, and there’s fighting. And there’s supposed to be a werewolf? But I didn’t see any werewolves in the preview, so I don’t know what that’s all about.
Am I clueless? Absolutely. But we’re not gonna review “Clueless”! We’re gonna review “Twilight”! Or rather…we were hoping that YOU hip and happenin’ gals would review “Twilight” because clearly, I haven’t the slightest idea what’s going on. So help us show Movie Madness Monday some love ladies. Who wants to review “Twilight”? Come one, come all! Whoohoo!
Tags: Movie Madness Mondays, twilight
Read more | Comments (52) | November 19th, 2008
