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Hello children, it's me, your favorite aggravated husband of a Crazy Duck Lady.

Aforementioned Crazy Duck Lady has said to me repeatedly that she thinks I should write something - an anthology of comedic quips or quotes, or possibly even a narrative.

After seeing the meteoric rise of Donald (Duck) Trump on the national stage and the internet's somewhat sarcastic rebranding of his personality, I felt that burning itch of a muse that Mary Anne speaks of.

Either a muse or a fungus, I can never tell which.

Anyway, today I start (cue dramatic score) ...

The God Emperor of Soon (a bad sci-fi parody)

...continue reading "God Emperor of Soon – Installment 1"

Let me tell you about this so-called War on Women.

The people who yell most about it will tell you that they just want women to be equal to men. What they really want is equality of behavior, not equality of worth. They want to eliminate the natural, God-given differences between man and woman, the male and the female. The differences are there for a reason, and they are not just physical.

And these differences are what I find to be the most beautiful things about women.

Just to show how old and wise the recognition of this difference is, look at the Tao symbol, which existed 1,000 years before Christ was born.

tao_symbol

Opposites intertwine to make a perfect whole, each dependent on the other and each one taking shape inside the other. They have true equality - EQUALITY OF WORTH - but are still opposites that touch and fold inside each other.

I came to this epiphany while watching videos of soldiers coming home and reuniting with their families. While every family member had emotional reactions, it was the mothers and daughters who drew my attention.

They would break out in tears and cover their mouths as they ran to their loved one, and I realized they were trying to contain their literally overwhelming joy.

The capacity for that much joy and happiness, and the other feelings of life's experiences, were so beautiful to me. And it will be a horrible, hellish day should that ever be eliminated.

The horrific, senseless, and utterly evil killing of the late Walter L. Scott is not a justifiable action.  This post does not, in any way, attempt to justify it.  This post is about why my state's lowcountry region has not been torn apart by vandalism and violence masquerading as protests.  This is about why the North Charleston/Summerville area of South Carolina is not and will not become the next Ferguson, Missouri.

A week ago today, on Saturday, April 4th, Mr. Scott, a black man, was stopped by a white North Charleston police officer for a very minor infraction - I believe it was a broken taillight on his vehicle.  In the course of the stop, Mr. Scott fled his vehicle and ran from the officer who gave chase.  A taser was employed but ultimately the officer pulled his gun and shot the fleeing Mr. Scott a number of times in the back, causing Mr. Scott's tragic death.  First accounts indicated the officer felt threatened because Mr. Scott tried to grab his taser, but an eyewitness took video of the event and he ultimately turned it over to the Scott family.  The shooting occurred on Saturday, April 4th and on Tuesday, April 7th - just three (3) days later, the officer was charged with murder.

However,  the Charleston area hasn't turned into Ferguson, Missouri.  Here, we've had no hordes of people using Mr. Scott's death as an excuse to steal iPads or televisions.  We've had no mobs taking to the streets to destroy the hard-earned property of business owners and pretending they are doing it as an act of "respect" to the late Mr. Scott.  Very likely, Mr. Scott's family and friends own businesses and have worked hard at various enterprises.  Surely, that was also the case in Ferguson, but it didn't stop the vandalism and violence there, which was largely committed by outside agitators. Why is South Carolina different?

It's different because we are not joiners and we are not followers. We don't join unions and we don't join gangs of thugs and we won't follow any outsiders who try to motivate such stupidity.  Mr. Scott's family is a sterling example of South Carolina at its finest.  They have been vigilant and forceful in insisting that the truth of their son's death be brought forward, and that the responsible officer be held to account. But they've only asked that the responsible party be brought to justice - they've not blamed the entire North Charleston police department for the criminal evil of one officer.  In fact, two police officers on motorcycles escorted the hearse carrying Mr. Scott's body at his funeral today.  The family has indicated that it wants Mr. Scott's death to demonstrate and motivate changes that need to be made in the power dynamics between officers and citizens. The Scott family has given strong and clear signals that they do not want, and would not appreciate, an invasion of outside agitators.

Should any agitators be flown or bussed into the lowcountry of South Carolina to try to instigate a campaign of violence, I expect they would encounter armed business owners and armed law enforcement officers who would travel to the area from all over our state.  That is as it should be, because the tragic death of Mr. Scott is a South Carolina matter, to be dealt with by South Carolineans in the just, peaceful and strong manner that my state generally employs. Local leaders would not tolerate outside agitation and our state's Governor, Nikki Haley, would lend the full support of her office to keep the Charleston area as a peaceful place where respectful tributes to Mr. Scott can occur.

There is a prayer vigil planned tonight April 11th, the day of Mr. Scott's funeral, by local United Methodist Churches.  It will be held at the sight of the shooting and those wishing to pay respect to the late Mr. Scott, to support his family, and to indicate their abhorrence for the act of this officer, will walk silently to one of the Methodist Churches.  Participants won't be given the opportunity to vandalize businesses or liberate electronic devices. They will be given the chance to pay their respect and to indicate, by their presence, their support of Mr. Scott and his family.

Respect and support are important parts of South Carolina life.  I'd wager that Mr. Scott's family hasn't had to cook a meal since his passing.  Their friends and family have been there, tending to providing food and gathering with the family to join them in remembering Mr. Scott and celebrating his life and his legacy.  They will be there in quiet ways as the days pass, and will join the family again, to support them when the Officer is brought before a South Carolina Court to face justice.

We're not joiners and we're not followers so you won't get us riled up and ready to go out and attack our community.  And if you try to bring in outsiders to incite such violence, we will stand in support of business owners and officers in resisting and in overcoming such efforts.  All of South Carolina mourns with the Scott family today.  Mr. Scott's death was a South Carolina tragedy but I am very, very proud that the late Mr. Scott's parents are dealing with it as South Carolineans, not joining and not following and not seeking joiners or followers.  I am not a member of his family and didn't have the privilege of knowing Mr. Scott, but I expect that his family would appreciate people remembering their son by giving a donation to his Church or the NAACP rather than by breaking into businesses and destroying their community.

Racism is evil, but so are violence and vandalism.  Ferguson's leaders may have felt that they had to tolerate a certain amount of violence in order to prevent more, but South Carolina is not Ferguson. We'll not join you and we'll not follow you - but if you are here to incite trouble, we'll be glad to show you the way out of our state.

Rest in peace, Mr. Scott.

It's the husband of the Crazy Duck Lady, with the simple announcement that all of her Carnal Collateral books have been published and are online, waiting for you guys to download them and salivate over them (or whatever it is you do).

You can see the last one, Devil's Delight, in the sidebar and the Olivia Outlaw books page. Or you can click the links I just graciously provided for you out of the (diminishing) goodness of my (cold, black) heart.

Sorry I haven't been updating. Not motivated enough to be creative. Been too angry at situation, work, life in general, and the attempts to maintain my much coveted status as one of the rich. You know, the rich. The ones near the age of 50 working two part-time jobs to keep the luxuries of such extravagant lifestyles, like living indoors in small houses with electricity, plumbing, and food. And no retirement money or plans at all, and no medical coverage. The Affordable Care Act apparently has, in one of its several thousand pages, a provision that says "health insurance shall be affordable to all - except ANGRY OLD FAT MAN, who is too rich to enjoy all benefits listed in this document without paying out his ass".

I hope everybody who came up with and approved of such a travesty burn in Hell while being raped by the barbed penis of Satan.

Hi there kiddies, it's been awhile since you heard from the ticked-off obese guy, so here I am in all my aggravated glory on a cheerful Saturday.

By the way, I'm not much on Native American mumbo-jumbo, but I've decided that if I have an animal spirit, it's Grumpy Cat.

I keep a steady level of rage at all times. It's what keeps me somewhat motivated. But rare is the time that my anger and both of my wife's occupations, lawyering and writing books, all cross paths simultaneously.

This is one of those times.

Not with anything my wife has done, however. She knows not to go where angels (and most demons) fear to tread. That particular act takes a special kind of person.

An asshole.

In this case, I'm talking about Jesse Ventura - former Vietnam Navy SEAL, Minnesota governor, actor, motorcycle gang member, actor, pro wrestler, steroid abuser; current conspiracy theorist and asshole.

I hadn't given half a damn about Jesse Ventura since the original Predator movie and his governorship. I think I fairly represent most sane Americans when I write that. After that, I have no idea what the hell happened to Ventura. Maybe the steroids he took back in the day caused substantial brain damage. Maybe he saw all the money Alex Jones was making in pushing bugshit-crazy conspiracy theories and decided to get in on the action. I honestly have no clue.

What I do know is what he did that hit on my wife's two occupations:

  1. LAWYERING - He decided to sue a dead man, record-holding SEAL sniper Chris Kyle.
  2. BOOK WRITING - Ventura is suing Kyle because of something Kyle wrote in his bestselling autobiographical book, American Sniper.

Of course, since Chris Kyle is deceased, Ventura is not really suing Kyle, he's suing Kyle's widow and children. What kind of man could take a livelihood from a widow and her children? I'll tell you. AN ASSHOLE.

It's not like Kyle even mentioned Ventura's name in the book. You see, I own a copy of American Sniper and I've read it a couple of times. I had no idea until I heard about this lawsuit that it was Ventura that Kyle was supposedly writing about.

To me, this was another case of the Streisand Effect, where Jesse plays Barbra.

Even before all of this Internet stuff gave us terms like "Streisand Effect", though, things like this happened. For example, way back in the 17th Century Shakespeare wrote about a lady protesting too much.

In the South, we describe things like this with colorful metaphors stemming from our unique culture, dialects, and life experiences.

It wasn't (and still isn't in some very rural areas) uncommon to see a bunch of unruly, half-feral dogs near your house around here. Of course, this is a fairly troublesome and possibly dangerous situation, and the best thing to do is find a way to disperse the dogs before something bad happens.

That's when you pick up a decent-sized rock and throw it at the dog pack. It doesn't have to be accurate, especially if the pack is large; the rock is nearly guaranteed to connect with a canine.

And how can you tell you've hit a dog with your projectile? Why, that particular dog begins to howl and yelp and bawl as if it suffered the most egregious injury ever endured by dogkind. It... hollers.

At that point, the rest of the dogs quickly scramble to find other places to sniff around, while the hollering dog runs like its ass is on fire.

If you could question the dog later about the incident, it could lie about it and say it wasn't anywhere near that pack of other dogs, and it surely didn't get hit by any rock. It would probably do so, especially if it was an asshole dog hanging with a bunch of other asshole dogs.

But you know what? The hit dog always hollers. Usually long after it's prudent to just shut the hell up and skulk off.

This is a serious, if disjointed and insane, political rant from yours truly, the Angered One. If you get easily pissed off at political discussions and radical views and/or don't want to read that kind of stuff here, kindly turn back now. You don't have to read this.

...continue reading "Remembering September 11th, 11 Years Later – Let’s Talk REAL Terrorism"

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Sorry to disappoint you guys, but it's me, the Dear Hubby, instead of the Quacked-Out Duck Lady.

She's experiencing some of the fun I used to enjoy, mainly formatting e-books to satisfy the jackals at the various digital distributors. Given that, the full-time job, the bills, the laundry, and writing her wacky romance novels, she didn't have the time or energy to deal with the blog this week, so I'm doing it. This is taking crucial time away from my more important tasks, mainly ARRRRRR WHAR BE THE WENCHES AND THE GROG ARRRRRRR!

First, some news on our website(s). I've taken the time to change the e-book covers to reflect Mary Anne's title changes on her contemporary romances. Her contemporaries weren't moving off the digital shelves as quickly as the historical/fantasy romances, so we discussed possibly bundling them at some future date. Of course, there has got to be some unifying theme to help tie the bundle together, so when we looked at the nitty-gritty essence of the two current contemporaries and the one she's currently working on, we found a hook - Dangerous Relations, where relationships and the law intersect and many times conflict.

So now we have Dangerous Relations: Seducing the Billionaire and Dangerous Relations: Griffin's Law, with Mary Anne currently pounding away on the third one. No, I'm not telling you what the work-in-progress is tentatively titled, leave me alone you freaks.

I also fixed our Nook links on the Complete List of Books page, which were all broken due to Barnes and Noble introducing their Pub-It service, a direct competitor to Amazon's Kindle Publishing. It's aggravating to deal with, but I understand the necessity of the computer programming changes.

Now onto the meat of the blog post. The other day I encountered, on a fairly well-trafficked comedy website, a piece written by a male feminist.

I struggle to understand the very concept of a male feminist, or any other (what I see as) self-hating political activist.

...continue reading "Male Feminists – The Ultimate in Hypocrisy"

Normally I blog about the world of romance novels. Many of those blogs talk about the heroes I love to write.

Without fail, the heroes of my books are strong, determined and courageous men. By the end of my Forever Series all of the heroes must face and overcome their worst fear for love. I like to think that any of my heroes would've run into the Twin Towers to help save the innocent victims of hate.  But it's easy to write pretend heroes. 

It's far harder to comprehend the amazing strength, courage, determination and dedication of the men and women of New York City's Fire Department, Police Department, and Transit Police.  They charged into what must have been a nightmare beyond their worst imaginings.  All of them saved lives, but not all of the life-savers were able to preserve their own.

And the men and women who went to work that day at the Twin Towers and in the Pentagon - many of them didn't make it back home either.  None of the victims on the four planes survived, but one group of the victims - on Flight 93 - transformed themselves into heroes who charged the cockpit.  They thwarted the terrorists' intent to kill innocent men and women in the US Capitol and they saved the building.  It stands today, still, as a monument to the greatest country on earth and it stands as an eternal tribute to those heroes of Flight 93.

Thousands of America's finest men and women died on 9/11/2001.  They were all husbands, wives, lovers, children, parents, grandchildren, or  grandparents. And they all died for no other reason than that they were Americans.  Yes, some fine citizens of many countries died on 9/11.  Their deaths were, however, collateral damage - which may, if anything, make their loss even harder for their loved ones.  I don't mean to diminish their deaths, but the target of the terrorists' attack was the American victims.

Again, the Americans who died that day left us only because they were Americans.  None of them was specifically targeted. They just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time - except for the fire fighters, NYPD Police and Transit Police.  All of the rescuers charged into harm's way. But what had America done to earn such hatred? Nothing. Nothing at all.

The evil terrorists are from a group of people who adhere to an ideology that holds nothing as sacred as the belief that their way is the only way.  They hate the way Americans live and love and they resent the way Americans succeed and persevere.  They hate most what Americans love most - freedom.  They wanted to destroy us on 9/11 and they want to destroy us today. They haven't succeeded and they won't succeed. 

But in the decade since 9/11 all of us have had to live with the memory of that day.  And too many wives, husbands, lovers, children, grandchildren, parents, grandparents and friends have had to do something that may have been even harder than charging into those buildings. They've had to survive and carry on when they really wanted to sit down, give up and stop.  All of them are heroes and heroines. 

Too many great Americans died that day.  None of them died in vain.  And I'm writing this blog to say that they may have died, but they are not gone.  They will never be gone.  As long as we carry all of those people in our hearts, they will all stay here with us.  Those we love never leave us unless we let them go.

Ceremonies will be held to honor and mourn the loss of the victims, and to remember the day that America can never be allowed to forget.  As those ceremonies are held, and later, as we visit the memorial sites, we should all look around and we'll see them there, standing proud and vibrant and alive.  They will comfort those who mourn them and they will embrace those who love them.  And as long as we teach our children about 9/11, the victims will continue to live as victors who have already outlasted one of those who hated America most. They will continue to live long after the last adherent of the philosophy of hate has died unmourned and soon forgotten.

As long as we love them and keep them with us, neither America nor their loved ones will ever lose the 9/11 victims.  We can keep those lost on 9/11 with us as victors, kept with us forever by the greatest force in all of the universe -- love.

I hope that the families feel their loved ones' presence, their comfort and their strength as we reach the tenth anniversary of their deaths and that they continue to hold onto their loved ones as the families strive, survive, succeed and endure.  Those who passed in the tragedies of  9/11/2001  will be with us on 9/11/2011.  If we keep them in our hearts the victims of 9/11 will be with us still as the first decade becomes the second, the third, the tenth and the twentieth.

Love is the force that will always vanquish hate and that is why those we love never leave us, unless we let them go. So we will never really lose those 9/11 victims turned victors.  As always, the real losers are those who choose hatred and terror rather than love and liberty.

Hey kiddies, it's the husband again.

Mary Anne is working on wrapping up Duke of Eden for all of you who are lusting for some closure on that serial, so blogging duties have fallen on me once again.

Let me pull out and dust off something I wrote back on December 10, 2003. It was not quite the height of the Hate Bush II movement, since it was still his first term, but the Left and their allies in the news media outlets were getting fired up with anti-war rhetoric and hypocritical hatred of Dubya.

Now with the Libya operations, there has been a strange turnaround with the rhetoric. You too can be prepared to predict these turnarounds (among many other trends) if you simply memorize the guide to television news I wrote over 7 years ago:

...continue reading "Helpful Guide to Network Television News"

Unless you serve in our heroic armed forces, being an American is generally more about privilege than price. Today is different. Today is the day we do our job as citizens of the best country in the history of the world.

Today we decide our country's direction by choosing to re-hire the politicians who've been working for us or by letting them go and hiring someone new.

Today is NOT ABOUT your political persuasion. Today is about being an American. GET OUT AND VOTE!!!