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Michele Caitlyn-Strout
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"Live and Let Live, and When it Comes My Time, Let Me Die With Dignity"

Hampden, ME, USA
female
single
Speaks: English, Some ASL, Dog as a Second Language, Catspeak
Joined Dec 28, 2008
What I Want to Do:
Causes: environment, Right to Die with Dignity, Workers Rights (Trade Unions), Religious Tolerance, Animal Welfare
Activities: animal rights/welfare, worker's rights, pagan rights activist, meditation and spiritual growth


 
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I've lived in Maine my entire life. I love the state and the beauty of nature that surrounds me, but I'm very disappointed with one barbaric tradition still held by some hunters in the state of Maine.

According to the Environmental News Network, Maine is the only state in the country that still allows leg-hold trapping of bears. From the 1960's to the 1980's the steel-jawed leg-hold trap was made known to the world as, conclusively, the most barbaric device ever contrived for animals. It is the most gory visual display of animal cruelty.

Trapping may be the most inhumane method used by Wildlife Services, other public agencies, and private interests. It is highly unregulated with few restrictions on types of traps that can be set or the number of animals that can be trapped. Trappers don't have to check traps for 2-4 days, allowing the animal to suffer. Animals frequently sustain severe injuries from traps. When not killed outright by the trap, animals can endure physiological trauma, dehydration, exposure to severe weather, and predation by other animals. Trappers usually club, suffocate, or strangle the animal because a bullet hole and blood would reduce a pelt’s value. Most traps are notoriously indiscriminate, capturing almost any animal who triggers them. Non-target species found in traps include endangered species, raptors, dogs, cats, and humans. Even if released, they may die from injuries or reduced ability to hunt or forage for food.

The most commonly used trap is the jaw leg-hold trap, a restraining device with spring-loaded steel jaws that clamp on an animal’s foot or leg when triggered. Leg-hold traps can cause severe swelling, lacerations, fractures, self-mutilation, limb amputation, and death. A desperate animal will often try to chew off a limb to escape. Snares are primitive wire nooses that are designed to tighten around an animal’s leg or neck. While small victims of neck snares may become unconscious in ten minutes from strangulation, larger animals may struggle for days. Conibear traps consist of two metal frames hinged at the center and powered by two torsion springs to create a scissor-like action. The traps are supposed to kill animals instantly by snapping their spinal column at the base of the neck. But, the devices kill fewer than 15 percent of trapped animals quickly. Many animals die slow, painful deaths as their abdomens, heads, or other body parts are crushed.

It is hard for me to believe that the majority of Maine people, if they thoroughly understood this barbaric form of animal torture, would stand idly by and do nothing. 
 
Personal Professional Contact Singles
Joined Dec 28, 2008 Activist Aspirations Casual 
Here for Meeting Friends, Support a Cause 
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Groups AFL-CIO, ASPCA, Ask the Vet Techs, Best Friends Animal Society, Boycott Animal Circuses, Cat Lovers, DUO for World Peace, Defenders of Wildlife, Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund - Electing Pro-Wildlife Leaders, Dog Lovers, Earth Day, Elephant Lovers, NWF - National Wildlife Federation, National Audubon Society more »
Hometown Bangor, Maine 
Homepage http://myspace.com/manyfaunas  
Birthday Jan 07  
Languages English, Some ASL, Dog as a Second Language, Catspeak  
About Me Loyal, compassionate, and always thinking about ways to make the world a little better.
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  Introduce yourself to Michele
  Lifestyle
Pets Benjamin my Brown and White Tiger Cat, Zacharia my Black Tiger Cat, Annie Mae my Maine Coon Cat, Sampson my Pekingese Mix, Gloria my Corgi Mix  
Activist Aspirations Casual
Political Leaning Very Liberal
Religions spiritualist, Pagan-Eclectic, Shamanic, Unitarian-Universalism, Animist  
Eating Habits Semi-Vegetarian leaning towards full  
Wild Fact About Me I'd rather be in the water than on land.
My Philosophy An' ye harm none, do as ye will.
What Gives Me Hope Barack Obama gives me hope for the United States, when I feared we had none.
If I were Mayor, I'd make the world a better place by I'd surround myself with intelligent, compassionate, like-minded people, because I know I couldn't make a difference on my own.
What/who changed my life and why I am forever changing.
What Bugs Me People who prefer to remain ignorant, apathetic people, those who complain but don't vote, anyone who would abuse an animal, religious intolerance  
Passions Right to Die with Dignity, worker's rights, Pagan Spirituality, Animal Welfare/Rights, my pets, Nature and Spirituality  
Inspirations earth-air-fire-water-spirit  
What Scares Me Those who would first choose war  
  Favorites
Role Models Barack and Michelle Obama, Temple Grandin, John Lennon, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Ghandhi  
Quotation "Dream as if you will live forever. Live as if you will die tomorrow." ~James Dean

"I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it." ~Abraham Lincoln

"Why should man expect his prayer for mercy to be heard by What is above him when he shows no mercy to What is under him?" ~Pierre Troubetzkoy

"Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight." ~Albert Schweitzer

"Hunting is not a sport. In a sport, both sides should know they're in the game." ~Paul Rodriguez

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary." ~Steve Jobs

"If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal." ~J.F.K

"The power to learn is present in everyone's soul and the instrument with which each learns is like an eye that cannot be turned around from darkness to light without turning the whole body."~Plato

"The price of anything is the amount of life you pay for it."~ Henry David Thoreau
Interests Learning, Reading, Kayaking, Swimming, Playing the Harp, Spiritual Growth, Numerology, TiVo, Animal Rights, Handwriting Analysis, Pychic Powers, Intuition, Emotional Freedom Technique  
Books Journey of Souls by Michael Newton, Let Me Die Before I Wake by D. Humphrey, Sex Lies and Handwriting by M. Dresbold, Pagan Anger Magic by Tammy Sullivan, Animal-Wise by Ted Andrews  
Music Eclectic tastes...wide variety  
Movies The Help, The Blindside, Saw V, Saw VI, The Three People You Meet In Heaven, Sling Blade, Saving Private Ryan, Jeepers Creepers, The Color Purple, The Devil's Rejects  
TV Shows Criminal Minds, Absolutely Fabulous, The Shield, The L Word, Grey's Anatomy, CSI (all of them), Keeping Up Appearances, Monk, Boston Legal, The Riches, Carnivale...who cancelled this?, Ice Road Truckers, Two and a Half Men, Don't Forget the Lyrics, The Big Bang Theory  
Favorite Foods lobster  
Favorite Places The New Orleans French Quarter, anywhere I can swim and kayak  
Can't Live Without Common Sense  
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    Jan 2, 2010 6:06 PM

    Michele C. (2)     		Oregon and Washington state allow assisted suicides for terminally ill patients, with Oregon adopting the nation's first "death with dignity" law in 1997. Montana is now the third state to allow doctor assisted suicides.
    Feb 28, 2009 1:46 AM

    Michele C. (2)

    C - is for the cages where we rot our lives away;
    I - is for the indignity we suffer every day;
    R - is for the ring where we perform for human glee;
    C- is for the cruelty the audience doesn't see;
    U - is for the ugliness behind the flash and glitter;
    S - is for our slavery, so brutal and so bitter.

    Boycott Animal Circuses
    Feb 19, 2009 5:03 PM

    Michele C. (2)     		Some people
    try to turn back their odometers.
    Not me!
    I want people to know 'why'
    I look this way.
    I've traveled a long way
    and some of the roads weren't paved.
    Feb 19, 2009 5:02 PM

    Michele C. (2)     		We Walk in Hope

    We don't know how long the road is;
    We just walk it to the end.
    We keep on walking expectantly, headup, walking in hope;
    We do not sit down in protest because our feet are sore;
    We do not get sidetracked by
    better-traveled roads;
    We do not look back.

    We are on the right road
    and so we walk it
    with joyful anticipation
    and quiet confidence
    and stedfast assurance.
    We walk this road in hope,
    And we will walk it to the end.
    ~Lon Flechter
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