spatch

ayelle has brought to our attention the story of a nature writer whose textbook descriptions of the black-footed ferret were lifted, word-for-word, and used as pillow talk in a romance novel. Paul Tolme's article on the black-footed ferret, which he researched in South Dakota, was originally published in Defender magazine's summer 2005 issue. Somehow, he became an unwitting contributor of dialogue to Cassie Edwards' romance novel "Shadow Bear", in which the exotically-named Shiona Bramlett falls in love with a Lakota chief named, uh, Shadow Bear. Tolme, alerted to this lifting by a romance novel snark blog, reads the book and discovers that portions of his article were placed hot on the heels of a torrid sex scene. I quote:

...a few pages later, as Bramlett and Shadow Bear bask in their postcoital glow, my ferrets arrive on the scene.

Bramlett hears something rustling in the bushes and recoils in fear. Could it be the evil Jack Thunder Horse, come to steal the map that reveals the secret location of the gold discovered by her late father?

No!

It's just a family of ferrets. Phew. Let's put aside for now that ferrets live on the prairie, where there are no bushes—never mind the forest where Edwards has set her characters. Seeing the cute animals, Shiona and Shadow Bear launch into a discussion about the cute little critters.

"They are so named because of their dark legs," Shadow Bear says, to which Shiona responds: "They are so small, surely weighing only about two pounds and measuring two feet from tip to tail."

Shiona then tells Shadow Bear how she once read about ferrets in a book she took from the study of her father. "I discovered they are related to minks and otters. It is said their closest relations are European ferrets and Siberian polecats," she says. "Researchers theorize that polecats crossed the land bridge that once linked Siberia and Alaska, to establish the New World population."

Ohmygod that is so hot.

Well, we took a look at that and worried. You see, we had been hard at work on a romance novel of our own, tenatively entitled "Buffalo Love", and had just smoked two cigarettes (one for each of our protagonists) after finishing a particularly steamy passage. We worried slightly because, as you see, while we were in the midst of this strenuous writing, a Wikipedia window just happened to be open and we might have kinda glanced its way while tapping intently on the keyboard. However, after reading over the finished passage, we are certain that we did no wrong and that nobody will notice anyway.

AND SO, burning with desire and torrid passion, the two engaged in a lustful duet which would have brought tears of pride to the eyes of Eros and all those other sex gods. [note to editor: insert allusions and imagery here.] Then, after making love like crazed meerkats for what he'd later tell his friends was hours on end, the dashing Brick Chestly lay back on the alpaca pelts, exhausted, while the lithe maiden Heaving Bosoms lay her head on his abs of iron (they had no facilities for smelting steel on the prairie) and lovingly stroked Brick's long and flowing yet most assuredly masculine hair.

"The Alaska Mental Health Enabling Act of 1956 was an Act of Congress passed to improve mental health care in the United States territory of Alaska," Brick said, after a long and beautiful moment of silence. Heaving Bosoms made a mmm-like sound in her reverie, eyes half-closed in the afterglow.

"Yes," she murmured into a pectoral muscle, not wanting the moment to end. "My grandfather John Purple Prose often told stories of it to our people. Introduced in the House of Representatives by Alaska Congressional Delegate Bob Bartlett in January 1956, it became the focus of a major political controversy."

"The legislation was opposed by a variety of far-right, anti-Communist and fringe religious groups," Brick continued, "prompting what was said to have been the biggest political controversy seen on Capitol Hill since the early 1940s."

"Prominent opponents nicknamed it the 'Siberia Bill'", she said with a hint of a giggle. Brick chuckled as well, and idly fondled one of the maiden's long braids.

"Yes," he rumbled, "and they asserted that it was part of an international Jewish, Roman Catholic or psychiatric conspiracy intended to establish United Nations-run concentration camps in the United States."

Later on, once the sun began to glow all rosy-like in the eastern portion of the sky, the two would recall how, with the sponsorship of the conservative Republican senator Barry Goldwater, a modified version of the Act was approved unanimously by the United States Senate in July 1956 after only ten minutes of debate.

It's certain we've nothing to fear.