Dear Romance Authors: Keep your politics to yourself.

Right now, need a romance written by Megyn Kelly, Ann Coulter or Michelle Malkin to balance the last three days of liberal literary excess. I have the flu and I am in the need of something to read to get my mind off of feeling like road kill. I’ve been on a historical reading binge as of late, and this week. I’d re-read a few of Pamela Clare’s historicals and I thought “Yeah, she’d do it.” Except all that was left was contemporaries by her.

So, thanks to Amazon Kindle for PC, I started downloading her contemporary books, starting with the first in the series. Even though the reviews weren’t stellar, I always feel I need to read a series in order if possible. I’m OCD like that.

The first book, Extreme Exposure, Clare’s first contemporary suspense. Clare was once a reporter (I think), from Colorado and into the Rocky Mountain High. I don’t know Clare is aware of her bias, but the books are one liberal cliche’ after another; full of evil rich conservative politicians, the evil environment hating industrialists breaking rules to the point that Chernobyl looked like a sterile operating room, the heroic woman pursuing a noble career in spite of inconvenience of a child. The “capitalism bad but blue cat people swinging in trees saintly”— that kind of mindset.

You have a heroine who had the Trifecta of TSTL: Too Stupid to Live, Too Skanky to Like (when she got drunk) and Too Self-Absorbed to Listen. The opening two chapters revealed the kind twit who turns crass and vulgar while drunk. Believe me, I’ve seen some out control females in my life, but this girl, before page 50 has taken stupid twit potty mouth drunk to an Olympic level. But hey, it’s OK! She’s a liberal reporter!

Plus she was a really bad mother in the “It’s OK, I’m pursuing my career and children are never as noble as a career” genre’. The degree of whining about how her important important important career is taking away from her time with her son got old quickly. While the excuse wasn’t survival, it was arrogance— You see, she’s a reporter saving the world and if she puts her child in danger, it’s because she’s being a noble reporter. I kid you not.

Did I mention she was a reporter?? Saving the world? Yep….

Plus she was shitty to the hero almost up until the last page in her self-absorbed vapidity and contrived conflict. Add in the hero was almost hugging trees in between legislative sessions while talking about fixing a corrupt (aka 2005) government before going out snowboarding and you have a book that will make your head hurt.

The concept of the series being “Reporters are the last delivers of truth”. This a time when we as a people see our media being more about pushing an agenda, destroying a constitutional republic in the pursuit of a socialist utopia than actually delivering any truth. Instead of coming off has heroic, the book comes off as liberally biased and preachy. Or maybe just totally clueless.

Book two, Hard Evidence, is slightly better, actually less preachy, though the heroine in this book too has TSTL moments. As in, you’re a female going into gangland sections of town to interview various gang members, drug lords and various other bottom dwellers. Sometimes not totally sure who she would be meeting.

Alone.

At night.

It’s like watching a lamb walk into a den of wolves with a jar of mint jelly and a serving platter as a hostess gifts. Of course, the hero gets shot five times (thank God for Kevlar) before the stupid twit ‘gets’ that ‘Bad people can kill you.’ The upside is, unlike the dingaling heroine in the previous book, THIS girl at least learns to shoot and carry a gun.

The third book, Unlawful Contact, the cliches’ come hard and fast almost from the first page. We get an earful about how evil prisons are (at least to women) and how we have too many. From the heroines mouth, we hear hunters are bad (in Colorado!!!) because they kill animals. Then there is the wearisome, uber overdone cliche of the EVIL abusive family that was Christian AND rich!! But of course the good spiritual girl of values was of Native American with her pacifist and beautiful old belief system. No bigotry here folks, move along. We’re again treated to careers more important than the well being of your kids, women are always victims and their mental health issues are ignored in prisons.

“Reporters are the last bastion of truth in America” was repeatedly preached. Like Contessa Brewer almost weeping that the Times Square bomber WASN’T a white male Christian? Because of her books, I know who Clare voted for in the last election, what news station she watches, how many trees she hugs when she walks outside and the T Shirt logos she wears etc. You see, I know who she dislikes and has contempt for because her books are window into her ‘perfect world’.

I am one of those she holds in contempt.

I do think she caught herself by the end of the last book by ‘fixing it’ with a kindly old preacher and his wife (cliche’ again?), and she was smart enough not to diss the military, though I got the feeling she wanted to but hey, at least THAT a line she won’t cross. By then I was fed up with the cliche’s and I think my fever broke due to the steam coming out of my ears.

Dear Liberals! Thirty five years of the same tripe is enough…. we get it! Rich people bad— conservatives bad— capitalism bad— military bad—Christians bad—women and minorities victims— children victims unless their mother is a reporter….etc Argh. We know who you hate.

We know you as the intolerant of the most intolerant. Get over yourselves! This goes doubly for authors.

Even the steamy sex wasn’t enough in these books to overshadow the pall of sanctimony that was made even worse by the author’s lack of personal insight into her own bias.

In a realio trulio fair world, I want to see a new bad guy. Lets have an Al Gore villain maybe…. wow! Ya know, evil lying hypocrite to the max and a horny poodle too boot. Maybe a evil politician intent on destroying the constitution while taking over private businesses. Maybe a media totally in the pocket of said government. Maybe a DOJ cowed into dismissing voter intimidation by a racist group. Maybe a private citizen or two or three called out by said government because they dare to disagree.

Ya know, the stuff that ISN’T cliche’ because no one has had the courage to write it yet.

Rules for a Broad

Butt:
As a woman with a broad beam, I know instinctively:
a. Not to wear white below the waist.
b. Not to wear a stiff fabric.
c. Not to wear a dropped waist.
d. and damn well know not to wear horizontal ruffles across my butt!

Will someone please tell this to the FLOTUS?

 

While cute on a baby, it is super silly and unflattering on an adult female,  rump or no.

Two Favorte Sayings of the Day.

“Life’s tough. If you’re stupid, it’s even tougher.” —
John Wayne —

“We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.”
~ Benjamin Franklin

Bad Bunnies, Rogue Roosters and When Did It Get So Crowded in the Country?

I got a call Sunday night that BunBun was in trouble. OK, not exactly trouble, more like creating trouble for me by digging under a neighbor’s rental property. Never did I think when she hopped out the pet door to freedom over 4 years ago, that my white rabbit would be my trouble maker.

Granted, I was as surprised as any and all that she not only survived, but thrived in the wild. In my bit of land next to several 100 acres of forest, she became my wild white hare (with black spots). Living under the storage shed, eating the dandelions in the front yard, napping under trees, coming to the back door to check for vegetable scraps and in general, living her own version of Watership Down.

Then recently, a friend asked me to take her buck rabbit, er, Bunny (now renamed Thumper). She’d had a baby and the rabbit was acting aggressive towards the infant, jealous of the intruder. I agreed to take him in, my idea was to keep in as in inside bunny, putting him out with the birds in the aviary during the day.

This worked for about a month, until one day (cueing “Sweet Mystery of Life”) he sensed-smelled-heard BunBun at the bottom of the porch steps. In three seconds he was through the pet door, in two seconds he was off the porch flying through the air and in one second their relationship was consummated.

As an aside, Rabbits aren’t known for foreplay, that’s for sure and it appears, female bunnies don’t even bother to stop eating grass while it’s happening. Word to the wise fellas.

Since then, they’ve been living their own version of Watership Down, except with one minor exception. BunBun became pregnant (of course) and instead of using under the storage shed as her nursery, she chose to go hopping through the woods to neighbor’s and dig under their home.

Which is why I got a phone call.

The second one this week. The other was about my rooster, Rambo, who has decided to also go through the woods to sit on another neighbor’s porch all day. His crowing combined with his pooping was making him poultry non grada. So he now is literally hand placed in a side yard by me to spend his day on that porch, instead of her porch.

So, one rooster under control and one bad bunny about to be caught and/or trapped (in a Hav-a-Hart of course) until I can get Thumper neutered.

In all of this, I remember when all around me was rural, trees, farms and wide open spaces. Gradually, over time, people have moved in and in the process, our perceived space has declined in turn. I’m trying to be a responsible pet owner, surprised yet not, that animals would gravitate to the perceived safety of humans instead of to the freedom of the woods. A house is safer than a shed is safer than a log. A porch looking out over another house feels safer than a porch and yard connected to the home of raccoons, foxes, coyotes and hawks.

It appears that often safety does trump freedom, though my job appears to be finding the balance. Between allowing adequate space or not imprisoning a now wild hare and keeping them safe from predators and me safe from unhappy neighbors. Maybe that is another way humans are different than animals. We’re aware of the differences and often, will make the choice between one or the other, fully cognizant restrictions and losses or of the risks and dangers.

But we choose, we don’t have owners who choose for us and try to find the best solution in their godlike fashion without our imput. We aren’t livestock, or rogue pets, or semi-feral critters in need of protection or control to keep our owners out of hot water with the neighbors. We’re human… free to chose lazy saftey or dangerous freedom.

Now I just wish I government would get a clue.