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Check out New Orleans's toughest and hottest gals on skates at www.bigeasyrollergirls.com: A great explanation of Roller Derby for those of you interested in learning more about how the game works:

I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa and I grew up in East London, South Africa on the east coast. I am a proud South African and I love Africa so very much! Not a day goes by that I am not at least a little homesick. I went to university in Port Elizabeth at the Port Elizabeth Technicon (now The Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University)but didn't finish my photography degree as I was distracted by a man,fell madly in love and followed him to New Orleans in 1999 for what was supposed to be a holiday. I never left and have been here ever since. The rest as they say is history... I love the USA and just recently became a US citizen (now I am African- American- with blonde hair and blue eyes!) but South Africa will always be home in my heart... I am interested in living a socially responsible,kind,love filled,selfless,thoughtful & compassionate life with respect for all living creatures and I hope that in my lifetime I will live to see a world in which all sentient creatures are afforded the basic rights to a dignified, natural and pain free life and death.I would also like to see a world in which we shun war as a solution and move towards non-violence and peace. Brute force is such a stupid and ineffective manner to solve problems really. I want us all to treat life as sacred and with respect- human and non-human alike. It is both my supreme blessing and my curse to have been born with the inability to avoid over-thinking and analizing all aspects of my life to death!- hey the world needs open- minded free thinkers!-they are the ones who see things before others or differently from others and often try to make the world around them a better place. But it can be quite tiring to be wired this way- sometimes I wish I didn't see or feel the world the way I do.... just so I could actually sleep at night sometimes... or maybe for once not be "THE freak" at the christmas/thanksgiving party. Nah- just kidding- I am proud to be different from the norm and a so- called "freak" - I say bless the freaks as long as they are pursuing a positive path. Fly your freak flag proudly, baby!

I feel things TOO MUCH : sometimes I feel like this:

I have been a vegetarian my whole life(thanks to an enlightened mom) and I am currently really trying hard to transition to Veganism as I now realise that there is no such thing as an "ethical vegetarian" when the big dairy giants in the industry are so flawed and cruel and suport the meat industry in many ways....Although I will say that there are small dairy and cheese farms that treat their animals properly- but the question remains always how to be sure that those small cheesemakers treated their animals right and how to find those farms' products in my local grocery store?(See my blog on this for more if you are interested.) I have given up eggs and milk but cheese is the final frontier- it's a continuous struggle for me but the more Vegan meals I can eat the better I feel physically and ethically . This transition has been and continues to be a process and a challenge for me rather than a sudden change.I probably ate vegan 3/4 days a week last year so was on a journey towards a more compassionate life. I am not going to lie , I have slipped many, many times on the cheese front- eggs and milk have been absent from my diet for a long time. I am trying not to beat myself up about my slips but just get back on the horse so to speak and keep on trying. -)

Traditionally, we have held human life to be of the utmost comparitive worth. I am asking you today to consider that that stance is not correct nor is it the most productive idea for the future of our planet. We need to progress in our ideas about ethics and extend those ethics to non-human life as well for to go the other way is to go backwards in our own moral progress and intelligence and evolution.I don't expect you to read any further if you are a meat eater but I hope you will...I firmly believe in free will and in "each to his own". If you're not willing to consider Vegetarianism/Veganism as a way of life, I hope you will at least take pause to think about how your food reaches your plate and stomach- and at least fight for regulations to treat farm animals raised for food in a humane and compassionate way. They are living creatures capable of feeling pain. The modern factory farming system is absolutely despicable and few people pause to make the connection between the cow and the hamburger on their plates nor do they care what kind of torture, mutilation and inhumanity that animal suffered before becoming dinner. This is outrageous! I want to live in a world where more people open their eyes to the truth and reality of the misery we inflict upon the wonderful animals we share this planet with.

And yes farm animals are beautiful and worthy of a natural and pain free life. I challenge you to spend some time with a pig or cow on a farm and then come back to me and tell me they aren't just as intelligent, diverse in their personalities and loving as your dog or cat.Ask anyone who has ever had a pet pig how smart they are and then tell me how you merely disregard that information each time you sit down and eat bacon for breakfast?!

Chickens are also far more intelligent than any KFC munching person will dare to admit. A total of eight billion birds every year are killed , approximately one million every hour. The number of broiler chickens killed for food is almost beyond comprehension. These birds are exploited in greater numbers than any other animal on the planet. Yet, they have virtually no legal protection whatsoever from abuses that would horrify nearly anyone, were they not kept hidden behind the walls of factory farms and slaughter plants. The most common welfare problems for these birds include: Genetic selection for rapid growth which causes high rates of leg disorders, heart failure, and respiratory problems Overcrowding in filthy sheds. High ammonia levels in the air they’re forced to breathe Violent catching, transport, and slaughter methods. Baby male chicks in the battery egg farm industry are useless to the industry and thus often suffocated on birth or gassed, crushed or even ground up alive. Now I know not too many normal feeling human beings would be able to watch baby chickens being fed alive into a wood chipper without feeling sick,right? So don't eat chicken or eggs! You are supporting this cruelty!

The way farm animals are treated would be grounds for animal abuse in 50 states if they were dogs or cats but because they are farm animals we don't help them or protect their rights. Does this make any sense at all? Why love one and torture, abuse and mutilate the other? Many people say "I think its cruel to kill an animal and thats why I strongly disapprove of hunting."or they tell me they are "huge animal lovers" whilst they continue to eat meat. Well how do you distinguish which animals deserve to have a dignified and natural life and death and which do not? Is a pig or cow or chicken not an animal too? A deer or duck doesn't deserve to be shot but a cow or pig can be treated like an object instead of a living sentient being- is that it? A dog is better than a pig? You are not an animal lover if you eat animals -period-. You are parading under very cloudy skies with huge holes in your logic and argument.Sorry but that is the harsh truth of the matter. If you care about the welfare of animals you cannot pick or choose which animals you care about!In that way the fact that they eat dogs and cats in the Far East makes them more sensible and less hypocrital than Western society - they don't see the difference between a dog and a pig because there isn't one! They are both intelligent sentient beings. .

The majority of the population has become brainwashed by billion dollar advertising campaigns by the beef and dairy industries. Most people are just so desentitized to the whole process or they don't make the connection. Those packaged hunks of meat don't look like living creatures so most people don't care or try to go out of their way to find out how they got there or what kind of horrific life & death they had to endure before becoming dinner.Just because you aren't the one directly doing the killing doesn't mean you aren't implicated or I could just go & hire a hit man to kill off some of my enemies and not concern myself with doing life in prison since I didn't directly commit the act, right? Think about it.

Over 95% of animals born and raised for food live and die in disgusting conditions. Dairy, veal and pig “farms” are the worst. Consumers naively believe that animals live a natural life on farms where they are only moderately inconvenienced by a swift death. These “factory farms” are hellholes and a million miles away from the pretty picture most people ignorantly believe them to be.

Ignorance is indeed bliss. Conditions the 9 billion (yes- BILLION) animals killed yearly in America for food live under are not regulated enough as it seems most people care far more about making money than about animal welfare.

Go to these websites as for lack of space here I cannot do justice to the true horror of factory farming:

www.farmsanctuary.org

www.cok.net

www.peta.com

www.goveg.com

or watch the videos of your food production like:

Meet Your Meat (www.peta.org)

Life behind bars-the sad truth about factory farming ( www.farmsanctuary.org)

Inside the egg industry ( www.Cok.net )

If you can’t watch it, you shouldn’t eat it!

And don't think you get off lightly ethically by eating seafood either-they absolutely have the capacity to feel pain.

I literally rescued a crawfish when I was a waitress who, I swear to god ,jumped out of the bucket of live crawfish he was being stashed in prior to being boiled alive and escaped from the walk- in cooler in this murderous restaurant and was running through the kitchen waving his feelers above his head like he was saying "Get me the hell out of here!Help!" I took him home and tried to keep him alive- I called him "Hank"! But sadly I did not know what to feed Hank and he died before I could take him to the Bayou and set him free! I buried him in my back yard making me the only person in Louisiana no doubt with a crawfish buried in their back yard!RIP Hank! You convinced me even more so that we don't know squat about the emotions of crustaceans and fish and that we do not give them the credit they deserve for being way smarter and aware than we can imagine.

The most simple of human daily routines: the meal can be a very powerful tool for changing the world.Every time you sit down to eat, you make choices which can have a significant impact on our planet and on the beautiful creatures that share this earth with us. I believe deeply in Karma. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. To say that your meat and dairy consumption is not important in the grand scheme of things, is to say that you are totally disconnected from this planet. It is like saying "Your end of the boat is sinking...!" Even if your response to all of this is, "I dont give a damn about animals." then you still have to wake up and realise the environmental impact that your meat consumption has on the planet.

If you cannot see that Vegetarianism and Veganism is better for the planet then you are missing the big picture. Meat farming is terribly wasteful.The resources that a meat based diet usurps versus one that's plant based is undeniable:

SOIL:it takes 22 times the acres of land to meet the food energy needs of one person eating meat than it does for one person eating potatoes

WATER: It takes more than 13 times the water to produce one day's food supply for an omnivore than it does for a carnivore.

FOSSIL FUELS: It takes 27 times the petroleum to produce a hamburger than it does a soy burger.

GREENHOUSE GAS OMISSIONS: According to U.N., animals raised as food stock create more greenhouse gas then all the vehicles combined.

OTHER WASTE AND POLLUTION: Land animals confined and killed each year excrete 130 times the feces and urine produced by humans.

So whether you care about animals or not you have to care about the impact your meat and dairy consumption has on the survival of the human race on this planet! We can not continue in the way we have been without serious implications for future generations and that is something every carnivore needs to wake up to. Albert Einstein said " Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival on planet earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet. " Einstein! Someone told me he was quite a smart man!

I have heard from so many critics that there are many worthier causes than animal rights - well firstly who do you think you are telling me what my cause should be?Secondly, I agree there are many worthy causes and that the world has many serious problems but since I cannot take on ALL the problems of the world , why shouldn't I choose a cause that is close to my heart and something I feel passionately about? Is it better to be complacent and fight for nothing at all ? Although I wish for a world where the mere unveiling of knowledge of the true cruelty we inflict upon farm animals suddenly caused everyone to reel with shock and become overwhelmed with compassion ,I have to accept that some people simply couldn't give a damn about animal cruelty. Well, you have to give a damn about the self preservation of the human race and continuing to eat as much meat as you do now, my carnivorous friends is not going to end well for this planet or your health. Some food for thought....

Now I do just want to say that I do believe a lot of Vegans and Vegetarians are too self righteous and preachy towards meat eaters and that, in my opinion, is the wrong approach. I am very happy to hear a meat eater even acknowledge that the modern meat industry is cruel or tell me that they are trying to eat less meat. Everyone is on their own personal journey towards living an environmentally friendly and compassionate life and I am not here to judge them. A lot of Vegans will be rude to Vegetarians and a lot of Vegetarians will be rude to Pescetarians- this is not the right approach, folks! Everyone has to take their own journey and we cannot force enlightenment on someone- they have to come to that point on their own. Anyone who is doing their best to REDUCE animal suffering and increase their knowledge of modern factory farming and food production is alright by me. Just remember the true essence of Veganism/Vegetarianism is REDUCING ANIMAL SUFFERING, NOT self-purity or self-righteousness. I just want us as a planet to move in the right direction. I don't expect the whole world to go Vegan or Vegetarian although of course that would be ideal and a fantasy come true. Everyone CAN reduce their meat intake and eat more vegetarian meals(better for your health),everyone CAN think more about how their food reached their plate and work to ensure that we have natural, humane conditions for farm animals and that more regulations are put in place to protect farm/food animals though, surely?If you are unwilling or not ready to give up meat and dairy, then do your research, be a selective consumer and fight to ensure you support small family farms that do raise and kill animals humanely or produce dairy humanely.(- they do exist but unfortunately in a VERY small minority.) And meat eaters or not,join in the fight against speciesm and animal cruelty -animals are not objects and shouldn't be treated as such- they are living, breathing, sentient beings deserving of rights.Do whatever it takes to make this planet a place we can all be proud of- write to congress- demand more regulations and rules within the agricultural business to ensure that "food animals" get basic rights- a natural life, a humane death- this is in everyone's best interests, especially if you plan to continue to eat meat and dairy. Eating the corpses of sickly, tortured, hormone pumped animals will make you sickly. And remember these great words if you feel you are just one person and can't make a difference:

"Whoever has overthrown an existing law of custom has always first been accounted a bad man: but when, as did happen, the law could not afterwards be reinstated and this fact was accepted, the predicate gradually changed; - history treats almost exclusively of these bad men who subsequently became good men! from Nietzsche's Daybreak

Also" The world only goes forward because of those who oppose it."Nietzsche

Some of my favourite quotes:

"The thinking man must oppose all cruel customs no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. When we have a choice, we must avoid bringing torment and injury into the life of another, even the lowliest creature; to do so is to renounce our manhood and shoulder a guilt which nothing justifies." - Albert Schweitzer

"It is the fate of every truth to be the object of ridicule when it is first acclaimed. It was once considered foolish to suppose that black men were really human beings and ought to be treated as such. What once was foolish has now become a recognized truth. Today it is considered an exageration to proclaim constant respect for every form of life as being the serious demand of a rational ethic. But the time is coming when people will be amazed that the human race existed so long before it recognized that thoughtless injury to life is incompatible with real ethics. Ethics in its unqualified form extended responsibility to everything that has life." -Albert Schweitzer

"If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons. "-- C. S. Lewis

"The question is not, can they reason? Nor can they talk? but can they suffer?" -Jeremy Bentham- Philosopher

"Animals were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites or women for men. " Alice Walker

"The thousands of people who have suffered food poisoning after eating beef will, no doubt, appreciate that their beef was aesthetically acceptable, even though it made them ill. ..Lovely to look at, dangerous to eat' is not a standard that is likely to help beef sales." --Carol Tucker Foreman, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture during the Carter administration, commenting on the inadequacy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Streamlined (Meat) Inspection System (SIS).

" It is a fundamental misperception to think human life has more value than any other life form." -Roger Fouts , comparative psychologist at Central Washington University

"You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

.."Smart people consider all apects of their life very, very carefully. People who think about the ethics of killing animals will naturally choose vegetarianism, and variations of that,more often." Trish Kennett, chief executive of Mensa in Australia.

"I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity." -- Ecclesiastes

"Usually, the first thing a country does in the course of economic development is to introduce a lot of livestock. Our data are showing that this is not a very smart move and the Chinese are listening. They are realizing that animal-based agriculture is not the way to go.... We are basically a vegetarian species and should be eating a wide variety of plant food and minimizing our intake of animal foods.... "Once people start introducing animal products into their diet, that's when the mischief starts." --T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D., of Cornell University, director of a study of 6,500 Chinese that found a close correlation between meat consumption and the incidence of heart disease and cancer.

"If man wants freedom why keep birds and animals in cages? Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds them. We live by the death of others. We are burial places! I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men." -- Leonardo da Vinci

"Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet." -Albert Einstein

"The moral progress of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated." Mahatma Ghandi

"You put a baby in a crib with an apple and a rabbit. If it eats the rabbit and plays with the apple, I'll buy you a new car." ~Harvey Diamond"

"For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love." -- Pythagoras

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the opressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality." Bishop Desmond Tutu

"I will not eat anything that walks, runs, skips, hops or crawls. God knows that I've crawled on occasion, and I'm glad that no one ate me." -----Alex Poulos

"While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?" --George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

"Awareness is bad for the meat business. Conscience is bad for the meat business. Sensitivity to life is bad for the meat business. DENIAL, however, the meat business finds indispensable." --John Robbins, Diet for a New America

"The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this century, all natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined. If beef is your idea of ..real food for real people,' you'd better live real close to a real good hospital." --Neal D. Barnard, M.D., President, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Washington, D.C.

"When we kill the animals to eat them, they end up killing us because their flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings." -William C. Roberts, M.D., editor of The American Journal of Cardiology

"Animals are my friends- and I don't eat my friends." - George Bernard Shaw

"Until he extends the circle of compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace." -- Albert Schweitzer

"To a man whose mind is free there is something even more intolerable in the sufferings of animals than in the suffering of man. For with the latter it is at least admitted that suffering is evil and that the man who causes it is a criminal. But thousands (now billions) of animals are uselessly butchered every day without a shadow of remorse. If any man were to refer to it, he would be thought ridiculous. And that is the unpardonable crime." -- Romain Rolland--Nobel 1915

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages. -- Thomas Edison

To become vegetarian is to step into the stream which leads to nirvana. -- Buddha

"May all that have life be delivered from suffering." - Buddha

"Nothing more strongly arouses our disgust than cannibalism, yet we make the same impression on Buddhists and vegetarians, for we feed on babies, though not our own." --Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

"Recognize meat for what it really is: the antibiotic- and pesticide-laden corpse of a tortured animal." ~Ingrid Newkirk, National Director of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

"Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them." -- Samuel Butler, Note-Books, 1912

"We all love animals. Why do we call some "pets" and others "dinner?" --k.d. lang

"Vegetarian food leaves a deep impression on our nature. If the whole world adopts vegetarianism, it can change the destiny of humankind." -Albert Einstein

"Flesh eating is simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act which is contrary to moral feeling: killing. By killing, man suppresses in himself, unnecessarily, the highest spiritual capacity, that of sympathy and pity towards living creatures like himself and by violating his own feelings becomes cruel." "As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields." -Leo Tolstoy

"My refusing to eat flesh occasioned an inconveniency, and I was frequently chided for my singularity, but, with this lighter repast, I made the greater progress, for greater clearness of head and quicker comprehension" "Flesh eating is unprovoked murder." -Benjamin Franklin

" "I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being" -Abraham Lincoln

"We welcome you into our ranks — ranks that have known the likes of Plutarch and Ovid, Horace and Pythagoras, Plato and Socrates, St. Francis and Leonardo da Vinci, the poets Shelley and Browning, Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, Collette and Harriet Beecher Stowe, Leo Tolstoy, Gandhi, C.S. Lewis, Mark Twain — join with us on this historic day when, in concert with thousands and thousands of others throughout the world, we declare war on vivisection! We will not rest — we will not rest! — until every animal is out of every cage in every lab! We can do this! We shall do this! The day WILL come when all the cages will be empty, when ALL the animals will be liberated, when all decent, compassionate people can shout with joy, echoing Martin Luther King's famous words: "Free at last! Free at last! "FREE AT LAST!" -Tom Reagan,from a speech given on World Day for Lab Animals, 1988, on the steps of the Federal Building, LCA Rally, Westwood, CA